Is Grammar Morphing With Texting?

[Ray McCarthy]

Pretty soon most computer input will be speech based

"Hey Joe," he shouted across the open plan office, "what is the command to wipe the disk?"
"Format C:," he replied.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Screams of anguish fill the office.*

The speech recognition I installed on XP and much later on Ubuntu isn't bad. But two main problems:
1) Talking and writing are different but related languages, Dictation is skill.
2) I think about the same speed as I type, or a little slower.

Voice recognition is still far worse than OCR. Problem is parsing and context. I'm not convinced about dictating a novel, nor about speech recognition. It probably works already for some people and never for others. It's not appropriate even if you can do it and the software works in any type of shared environment.

Speech recognition has been more than good enough for a command interface for well over 10 years. I've toyed with idea of having everything controlled (I have the hardware and the software, but not hooked up, I designed Industrial controllers and one vending machine) in the house and adding the voice interface. I have also an universal TV/AMP/Setbox IR remote controller I designed which connects to USB and also Winamp. It also adds RDS text to an FM "mp3 transmitter". But at the end of the day I couldn't be bothered making my house behave like the Enterprise.

[* There are quite simple methods to avoid the joke scenario]

 

[Vertigo]

Agree with everything you say, but I still think that will be the dominant interface before long. It will be difficult for old gits like myself but as a new generation grows up with it they will find it intuitive. In much the same way that the current young generation do not have anything like the same problems old gits like me have with the loss of privacy; they just expect to find everything about everyone available to them online now.

 

[Ursa major]

within a few days my phone had picked up on this

...and it was downhill from that point on....

 

[Bowler1]

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/12/oxford-dictionaries-new-words-december-2014/

Words from every generation make the cut and change how we speak, like "dude" when I was a young lad, which was some time ago now. On the link above there are words like mahoosive, marked with a red line as I typed (in your face computer) this, which has made the list recently. Shakespeare would have a great deal of difficulty understanding English of today, a favour returned by students in school today. So change occurs gradually, simples really.

I'm off to take a selfie and pull a duck face, then spam my buddies on FC - cool beans or what?

 

[Dan Jones]

They're teenagers. If they're anything like I was when I was a teenager, they're idiots.

If they're anything like I was when a teenager, they'll grow out of it.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I don't really think that texting is going to have a real impact on language, because it is not adapted to sharing thoughts and ideas in any meaningful way. It is a way of conveying (often banal) messages in as few words as possible, leaving out all the nuances of true social interaction. I believe that people are going to eventually realize that instead of enhancing their connection with others, texting actually creates a distance. It's really a rather lonely experience. Meanwhile, a person with their eyes on a screen obsessively sending text messages of no particular meaning, is being cut off from the other people in the room. It is like the people they are texting are more important than the people in their physical proximity, with whom communication would have the potential to be so much richer.

I have also noticed, when my children text my husband (always with practical, mundane messages) communication can suffer to the extent that several messages have to be sent over five or ten minutes in order to resolve a situation that could have been handled by a one minute phone call.

So I think people are either going to get tired of it, or a new technology that they find equally enthralling will come along and texting will become laughably out-of-date.

 

[Dan Jones]

I don't really think that texting is going to have a real impact on language, because it is not adapted to sharing thoughts and ideas in any meaningful way. It is a way of conveying (often banal) messages in as few words as possible, leaving out all the nuances of true social interaction. I believe that people are going to eventually realize that instead of enhancing their connection with others, texting actually creates a distance. It's really a rather lonely experience. Meanwhile, a person with their eyes on a screen obsessively sending text messages of no particular meaning, is being cut off from the other people in the room. It is like the people they are texting are more important than the people in their physical proximity, with whom communication would have the potential to be so much richer.

I have also noticed, when my children text my husband (always with practical, mundane messages) communication can suffer to the extent that several messages have to be sent over five or ten minutes in order to resolve a situation that could have been handled by a one minute phone call.

So I think people are either going to get tired of it, or a new technology that they find equally enthralling will come along and texting will become laughably out-of-date.

Tru Dat.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

At a certain age teens don't talk. Later they will discover that phones work for talking.

 

[Parson]

I quite agree Vertigo I also have a Samsung Galaxy, and I can now text with my daughter's speed if I use text to speech, which is also really, really good; and gets better as you use it. And the predictive text is catching the weirdness of speech at an alarming rate.

 

[Vertigo]

I really am convinced that new technology like that will rapidly make the need for abbreviated texting redundant, and, with the way fashions tend to go, probably totally passé as well!

 

[Overread]

Texting is like morse code; Its a method of communicating in short hand which is devised to allow communication between parties who know the "code". It was never formally built though so lacks a strong structure and rules set that a regular code would have; it evolved through necessity.

As such it has a potential to have some impact, but I'd wager no bigger than general shifts within language as time evolves. What has a bigger impact is the quality and structure of teaching
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...se-slang-text-message-speak-school-tests.html
(sorry its the mail) - extreme example (and being the mail likely not the whole truth or anywhere near it) but I'd wager this kind of approach as outlined would have far more "damage" or impact than texting alone.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Texting is like morse code

Actually many of the abbreviations are pre-radio, dating to at least telegraph morse code. Some may date to semaphore network era (yes, the Clacks of Terry Pratchett's Going Postal were real in Napoleonic era.)

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think that text messages have all the depth of Post-It notes -- which to some extent they have replaced. Instead of that note held up by a magnet on the refrigerator door, the one that says, "Won't be home for dinner. Am eating at friend's house." Or, "Went to library. Will be back soon." Kids just send their parents texts.

 

[Parson]

I think that text messages have all the depth of Post-It notes -- which to some extent they have replaced. Instead of that note held up by a magnet on the refrigerator door, the one that says, "Won't be home for dinner. Am eating at friend's house." Or, "Went to library. Will be back soon." Kids just send their parents texts.

Or my "favorite" -- Dad, I'm out of cash could you replace your granddaughters IPad? --- Sigh, do kids ever grow up?

 

[MWagner]

I have also noticed, when my children text my husband (always with practical, mundane messages) communication can suffer to the extent that several messages have to be sent over five or ten minutes in order to resolve a situation that could have been handled by a one minute phone call.

So I think people are either going to get tired of it, or a new technology that they find equally enthralling will come along and texting will become laughably out-of-date.

I've noticed this also. However, I've also come to realize that a lot of people will persist with the succession of awkward texts because actually calling someone up is becoming regarded as a rude invasion of privacy. An imposition. A lot of high-messaging people simply don't answer their phones anymore, and consider it rather gauche to be expected to interrupt whatever they're doing (probably messaging) and respond to someone with their voice.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Although sending a series of texts that need to be answered at once is just as invasive, and they don't seem to realize that. Or a text that tells you they need you to do something at once. Like that doesn't interrupt your day.

If you're too busy to answer your phone, they could always leave a message, and say what they have to say in a clear and unambiguous way that won't take several messages to sort out.

 

[hopewrites]

Well one can talk to several people simultaneously via text and only one via voice. Also there are many social settings where answering one's phone would be taboo, but quietly texting is over looked.

I do agree with Teresa that when I text my parents its post-it note stuff. I know they rarely have their phones on them unless they expect to use them. My mom checks her email more often than her phone so I'm more inclined to email her than text.

 

[Vertigo]

I have no mobile reception in my house so if anyone texts me I don't receive it until I happen to go out with my phone turned on. That can sometimes be several days. On the other hand if someone calls my mobile when it has no reception then, since I have it set to redirect to my landline, I get the call. So ultimately texting is something I do quite rarely.

 

[Parson]

Well one can talk to several people simultaneously via text and only one via voice. Also there are many social settings where answering one's phone would be taboo, but quietly texting is over looked..

This might be true of some people. Maybe a certain generation? But I find it rude. If they are part of a conversation and they are texting at the same time it says to everyone present. "I'm bored with you and this conversation. I think I'll tune you out."

 

[hopewrites]

This might be true of some people. Maybe a certain generation? But I find it rude. If they are part of a conversation and they are texting at the same time it says to everyone present. "I'm bored with you and this conversation. I think I'll tune you out."

My mom is of the same opinion. Which I found interesting, as her generation gave the idea to mine, talking to us kids in the middle of her conversations with other adults... when I pointed that out to her, however, she stopped doing it. Now when her grandkids come up and ask a question, she stops her conversation (or asks them to wait and interrupt her politely), so that she gives her undivided attention to one persons' concerns/ thoughts/ feelings at a time. I admire her for changing several years of habit which I know for a fact she learned at her own elders knees, to maintain the integrity of her request that we not text while talking to her.

Actually what I was referring to wasn't even texting while talking irl, but holding multiple text conversations at once. Some phones allow you to assign text alert tones as well as ring tones to individual contacts. So that you can hear without checking which texts can wait and which ones need immediate attention. My phone threads text conversations held with individuals, which makes keeping simultaneous text conversations straight. Especially when you get those who reply days latter with one word answers to questions you have almost forgotten you asked. "mom can I get grandma's fudge recipe from you again?" *weeks later* "yes" yes? yes what? Oh the recipe, good.