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.

Language has no independent existence apart from the people who use it. It is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end of understanding who you are and what society is like.

Several of us linguists at that time would record our own kids, just to get some data. There was some literature on it then, but no day-by-day, blow-by-blow examples. I recorded all my children over the years in some shape or form. It's what linguists do. You don't talk to a linguist without having what you say taken down and used in evidence against you at some point in time.

Grammar is what gives sense to language .... sentences make words yield up their meaning. Sentences actively create sense in language. And the business of the study of sentences is grammar.

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

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

You don't talk to a linguist without having what you say taken down and used in evidence against you at some point in time.