First off, texting has gotten to a point where it is ruining our language right before our eyes. “I h8 txt msgs,” written by John Humphrys, says our language is being ruined by abbreviations and emoticons. Humphrys states, “They are destroying it: pillaging our punctuation, savaging our sentences; [ravaging] our vocabulary” (pg 7, lines 55-57). Thinking the complete opposite of Humphrys’ beliefs is journalist David Crystal. Crystal’s judgment of texting is that it improves our language and benefits texters. In Crystal’s article, “2b or not 2b,” …show more content…
John Humphrys believes there is no point in abbreviations and thinks they are useless and a waste of time. Humphrys says, “Even worse are the grotesque abbreviations… if the recipient … has to spend ten minutes trying to translate it, precious minutes are being wasted” (pg 8-9, lines 92 and 100-102). On the contrary, David Crystal thinks abbreviations are beneficial to their users in school, especially in language arts and reading classes. Crystal explains, “The more abbreviations in their messages, the higher they scored on tests of reading and vocabulary” (pg 24, lines 241-243). This sentence from Crystal’s article clarifies that abbreviations are helpful and they improve scores in language arts. Humphrys argues that abbreviations take too much time to comprehend, and that time shouldn’t be washed down the drain. Both of these pieces from the two journalist’s articles show two sides of the common belief that abbreviations are annoying and