Re: OT-ish: txt - Could it replace Standard Written English?

On Tuesday 04 March 2003 10:51 am, Tristan wrote:
> Joe wrote:
> > With the new advent of txt, I came to wonder - could it replace standard
> > written English?   There is no doubt that its use is growing, and it
> > seems that it seems to be used in more colloquial writing by some young
> > people.  I wonder, could it really go that far?
>
> I certainly hope so (sorry Nic)! I relatively rarely use it, but I'm
> bored of the standard English orthography.
>
> In some ways, I think it's similar to the Medieval(?) practice of
> abbreviations, ligatures and whatnot that lead to glyphs like & and @,
> sharp S's, umlauts and cedillas. So it isn't exactly a totally new thing.
>
> Also, I think it'll serve as a useful reminder to some people that
> speech is the primary form of communication and writing something that
> comes later. If we come out with something abjad-like, you couldn't
> exactly say that 'grwing' was meant to be pronounced like that.
>
> On a related note, in the _MX_, a dodgy free paper, there was an article
> about some British student-or-another submitting an English essay (I'm
> guessing it was primary school (or whatever the equivalent may be in the
> British education system)---it began with something like 'the hols wr a
> CWOT [complete waste of time]').
>
I think we have the same or similar education system to you people in the land
of Oz.  I don't know about your exams, though.

Also, the BBC claims this too, and I trust the BBC.