Because Internet

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

And no, texting is not destroying the English language.

And if you want proof of that, then you need to run right out and get the wonderful book Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch.

She’s a linguist who analyzes the language of electronic communication, so tweets and texts and the like.

And Grant, I think you’ll agree that it’s a smart introduction to language and linguistics in general.

And it’s rich with insights about language in the digital age.

For example, she points out that it’s not that writing has completely changed in the digital age, but rather it’s forked into formal and informal versions.

She writes, the Internet didn’t create informal writing, but it did make it more common, changing some of our previously spoken interactions into near real-time text exchanges.

And she explains that in the process, we’ve been developing expanded systems of conveying emotional nuance through text.

In other words, we’ve been crowdsourcing ways to make electronic communication more personal and not less.

For example, take emoji.

It’s not that these cute little symbols always replace words or compete with them.

Many emoji function like gestures.

They accompany speech online, much as we naturally gesture when we’re talking.

Yes, a smiley face in a text can indicate happiness.

You know, yay, I got the job, smiley face.

But depending on the context, the smiley face might supply a more nuanced meaning.

You might add one to a request to make it a little more polite.

Or you might soften a statement that might otherwise be taken as an insult.

In other words, emoji create this kind of typographical tone of voice in a medium that’s potentially impersonal.

And she says, when we learn to write in ways that communicate our tone of voice, not just our mastery of rules, we learn to see writing not as a way of asserting our intellectual superiority, but as a way of listening to each other better.

Grant, you and I have both been recommending this book.

You love it, too.

Yeah, yeah.

Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch is one of the best linguistic books I’ve read in probably 10 years.

You and I are sent bunches of books all the time about language, but this one kind of rises to the top because she does a great job of summarizing the truth about Internet communication rather than perpetuating these myths and these suspicions.

She actually goes out for the data and actually demonstrates again and again and again through history and context and data what is actually really happening.

It’s so smart.

And she’s written it in the casual voice of the Internet, so it’s very readable.

This is not a dense academic tome that you’ll use to fall asleep at night.

This is the rich, funny, well-written, easy-to-read thing that you could do at the beach or do in the morning with your oatmeal.

It’s just fabulously well-written, well-researched, and just highly recommended.

Yeah, yeah.

A lot of it is very funny, very lively.

She has, I have to say, this sort of nerdy delight.

Oh, she’s our people completely.

And I know Gretchen McCulloch, and my recommendation would come even if I didn’t know her.

So that book, again, is Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch.

And you know what?

We should talk about it later in the show.

Let’s do that.

And you know, if you’ve got linguistic books that you recommend, something you think that Martha and I need to read, we are open for business.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Or tell us about your favorite linguistic books on Twitter @wayword.