General Question
Do you know of any books that critique texting, instant messaging, or casual speech/writing among teens and young adults througout history?
I’m writing a critique paper for a media criticism seminar about a medium and how critiques about it have changed over the years. I started with texting (teens these days don’t know proper grammar, technology is making us dumb, etc) and realized there have been similar critiques throughout history about the younger generation, bemoaning their informal language in speech and writing and claiming they don’t understand formal grammar or writing. This of course, can’t be the case since the earliest such critique was in 63 CE and if it were true, then we would have lost formal language by now. I’ve been trying to find some critiques (in book form) to include in my paper, but most of my google results are blog posts and I don’t even know what section in the library such books would be in. I’ve got John McWhorter’s book, Doing Our Own Thing, but I was wondering if anyone knew of anything older than that. I guess I’m interested in linguistics (formal vs. informal language), adult critiques about the intelligence/ability of the youth, and examples of casual writing from before IMs and texts. Any suggestion helps. Thanks so much.
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