Vocabulary is a matter of word-building as well as word-using.

Research shows that those kids who text frequently are more likely to be the most literate and the best spellers, because you have to know how to manipulate language.

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.

Word books traditionally focus on unusual and quirky items. They tend to ignore the words that provide the skeleton of the language, without which it would fall apart, such as 'and' and 'what,' or words that provide structure to our conversation, such as 'hello.

Sending a message on a mobile phone is not the most natural of ways to communicate. The keypad isn't linguistically sensible.

The internet is an amazing medium for languages.

At any one time language is a kaleidoscope of styles, genres and dialects.