ASN.1

[Mark Keating]

> What some people (and I'm talking in general here rather than
> specifically about you, whom I don't know)  do not understand is that
> language is not a static thing, it continually evolves over the ages
> and the use of contractions such as these are a sign of the times of
> small keypads and busy lives. Evolution is a good thing not a bad
> thing. Popularity decides what survives not the hurtful bullying of
> statements like yours which mirrors (imho) the behaviour of early
> christans in this country towards the more native religions such as
> myrians ;-)
>   
Good points but not completely accurate. I absolutely agree that 
language is evolutionary, but that is mostly in relation to spoken, not 
written language. I am afraid that written language is a skilled subset 
of communication and one that has not 'static' but 'established' rules. 
This thesis you are prescribing in which a sub-group of people, texters 
etc., are evolving written language does not actually match the facts. 
That text/lol/l33t was the popular choice was once true, for a limited 
period. But with the technological advents such as predictive text and 
auto-grammatical correction and the demographic shift of more age 
groups, specifically middle and old-age people texting and using 
computers the statistical norm has returned to a more established set of 
gramatical use. Your texters/lolers and l33ters have now returned to 
their sub-group status. This is especially true in spelling, which 
doesn't evolve as you have declared, more deforms (see the Brothers 
Grimm and the mutable nature of words/spellings over time). Evolution of 
the type you are promoting here only happens in spoken communication and 
this is because the words and their structure represent only a third of 
face-to-face communication (see R. Fisk, Sociolinguistics, or D. Crystal 
Encyclopedia of Language).
> I've got no intention of starting a flame war on this topic. 
I agree with this sentiment, my above statement was only intended to aid 
enlightenment not contradiction.
>
> A good evening to you sir.
>   
Cheers

Mark

-- 
Mark Keating BA (Hons)              |  Writer, Photographer, Cat-Herder
Managing Director                   |  Shadowcat Systems Limited
Director/Secretary                  |  Enlightened Perl Organisation
http://www.shadowcat.co.uk          |  http://www.enlightenedperl.org
http://linkedin.com/in/markkeating  | 'Sufficiently Advanced Technology'