Texting has added a new dimension to language use, but its long-term impact is negligible. It is not a disaster.

Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries - eventually - reflect popular choices.

Text messaging is just the most recent focus of people's anxiety; what people are really worried about is a new generation gaining control of what they see as their language.

Academics don't normally manage to alter people's way of thinking through their strength of argument.

Although many texters enjoy breaking linguistic rules, they also know they need to be understood.

As I get older and I get a few more years experience I become more like Dad, you know, King Lear.

English has been this vacuum cleaner of a language, because of its history meeting up with the Romans and then the Danes, the Vikings and then the French and then the Renaissance with all the Latin and Greek and Hebrew in the background.