evolving language

hello everyone,
I chose this picture to represent the changing nature of language. I remember taking a middle english course back in undergrad and was really intrigued by the changes that have occurred in language over time, such as with the great vowel shift, for example. I was reminded of this while I was listening to the podcast, and particularly when the speakers were discussing questions about the use of emoticons (did they discuss emoticons? or am I just wishing they did?) and abbreviations in text and email. They predicted that these terms will die out with email because we don’t need to use them verbally, and they are more a function of our need to preserve valuable real state in our writing (i.e. microblogging). I tend to agree about some terms (text lingo). After all, why would we feel the need to say “lol”, when we indicate our amusement by actually laughing. On the other hand, some abbreviations or changes in spelling may stick. (Who knows.) The whole thing kind of fascinates me.
Another interesting piece of that audio clip was about how technology is changing our attention span. It was even a little bit of a challenge for me to sit and listen for 60 min, but I did it and I do think it was worth listening to in one sitting. (but this is counter to the idea of “chunking” too, isn’t it?)
So those are some of my ideas and thoughts. I am totally looking forward this course and working with all of you.
ttyl ;o)
Stacey