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Editorial Review Product Description
Text messaging has spread like wildfire. Indeed texting is so widespread that many parents, teachers, and media pundits have been outspoken in their criticism of it. Does texting spell the end of western civilization?
In this humorous, level-headed and insightful book, David Crystal argues that the panic over texting is misplaced. Crystal, a world renowned linguist and prolific author on the uses and abuses of English, here looks at every aspect of the phenomenon of text-messaging and considers its effects on literacy, language, and society. He explains how texting began, how it works, who uses it, and how much it is used, and he shows how to interpret the mixture of pictograms, logograms, abbreviations, symbols, and wordplay typically used in texting. He finds that the texting system of conveying sounds and concepts goes back a long way--to the very origins of writing. And far from hindering children's literacy, texting turns out to help it.
Illustrated with original art by Ed MacLachlan, a popular cartoonist whose work has appeared in Punch, Private Eye, New Statesman, and many other publications, Txting: The Gr8 Db8 is entertaining and instructive--reassuring for worried parents and teachers, illuminating for teenagers, and fascinating for everyone interested in what's currently happening to language and communication. ... Read more Customer Reviews (55) 
Interesting!
As a college teacher of international students, I found the book's emphasis on the universality of texting particularly interesting.
Scientific, but not overly linguistic
David Crystal has once again put together one heck of a page-turner. His new book Txtng: The Gr8 Db8 touches upon nearly everything that has to do with texting. Some believe texting to be a threat to the English language. Here, Crystal pours oil on troubled waters as he argues that texting could even be advantageous for youths. He reasons that teenagers first have to understand language before they can start playing with it. He dwells on the peculiarities and the distinctiveness of texting, some reasons why people do it, and some thoughts on social groups. Moreover, he focuses on the content of text messages, and he also gives a brief overview on how texting works in other languages than English. While doing so, Crystal remains scientific as he draws his conclusions based on sheer facts, but he does go into too much linguistic detail.
In sum, Txtng: The Gr8 Db8 is an absolute must read for anyone who is interested in how the new media affects language.
The language of texting
The book contains plenty of relevant data, well written, and well organized. However, I continually had a dull feeling as I was reading it, as if I was reading an academic textbook. Since I am not familiar with text messaging abbreviations, I am going to be referencing the Appendix sections in the back of the book a lot to keep myself up to speed. Unenjoyable to read but useful as sort of a dictionary when necessary.
Thorough and balanced overview
David Crystal is a well-known and highly respected expert in linguistics, who has written many books covering a wide variety of topics.His credentials are beyond question.This book reflects his expertise as well as his realization that all living languages are in a constant state of change.He focuses on the innovations that texting has brought to written language and does a thorough job of presenting the information he has collected.He helps the reader to put texting in context, and the book may allay the fears that some adults have about the supposed negative influence that texting may have on written language.The book is a fast but comprehensive read, written for the layperson, and includes a variety of helpful appendices.Highly recommended.
txtng4evr
Not exactly your typical digerati, David Crystal is honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales. Which makes sense, because "txtng: the gr8 db8" isn't your typical hip its-a-wonderful-new-digital-world send-up. Instead, Crystal parses texting in true academic fashion: locating antecedents (pictogramatic writing systems, rebuses, etc), examining technological limitations, and judging various examples of texting as literature (yup). There is also a glossary of terms, an appendix of various texting abbreviations, AND an appendix of abbreviations in ELEVEN OTHER LANGUAGES. Just in case I haven't been convincing, David Crystal has done his homework.
As impressive as the book is as analysis, "txtng" is not simply breakdown and description. Its core is a passionate argument delivered against an academic establishment (yours, mine, everyone's) that decries texting as impoverished English, a sign of mental laziness and short attention spans, and a catalyst for poor reading and writing skills. As you can imagine, Crystal demolishes these arguments with a variety of facts and an entertaining lack of grace. In place of the high-brow hand wringing, Crystal proposes a developmental theory of texting (and language) based on a principle of ludic (playful) activity. Basically, texting is a game that transforms normal letters and other keyboard characters into coy experiments with meaning. Rather than dulling literacy, Crystal believes that playing the game of texting REQUIRES a high level of literacy combined with other cognitive skills. Countering shortsighted, goal-based dogma with an expanded notion of human creativity as goal-free innovation is difficult under the best of circumstances. In this case, at this time, Crystal's argument stands as a deeply subversive act of imagination. tx Dvd, way 2 t+.
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