Curious

When cutting-edge technology and incorrigible youth collide, language reinvents itself. Desperate British parents, take heart: you can soon reference Collins English Dictionary in order to decode what your teen’s “stunting” about being “shifted” really means. Of course, American parents can take refuge in any one of a number of online shortlists of SMS vocabulary, a language littered with acronyms over six letters long. Parenting angst aside, many linguists relish the prospect of SMS-based literacy: YY U R YY U B I C U R YY 4 ME. And why not? This rapid expansion of technology and communication encourages the further professionalization of linguistics. Needless to say, forensic linguists have many more opportunities to freelance for criminal courts these days. (Examples of linguists’ crime-fighting prowess can be found here and here; both links were provided by the Centre for Forensic Linguistics.)