A little over seven years ago, John Humphrys penned an article titled ‘I h8 txt msgs: How texting is wrecking our language’. Tinged with irony, Humphrys’ title alluded to his fears, as brought about by the rise of texting. Within the article, Humphrys spoke of his love for the English language and how he felt that it was being ripped to shreds.

‘Ripped to shreds’. This is an example of the hyperbole with which Humphrys’ article is littered. It is similar emotive language which, along with hindsight, create the perceived paranoia which shrouds his own argument.

Humphrys’ love for the Oxford English Dictionary is admirable and it is a shame that the OED ‘has removed the hyphen from no fewer than 16,000 words’, but there was reasoning. Texting was fast becoming the most common long-range communication tool and at the time it relied on a nine-key pad, which required multiple presses in order to enter a hyphen. This meant that it was inconvenient to enter a hyphen mid-word, undermining Humphrys as he asks ‘can we not afford the milli-second it takes to tap that key?’. Perhaps, however, it is a shame that the OED made these changes only shortly before the QWERTY keyboard was adapted for the mobile.

Although the above holds true, this does not mean that the OED ‘has fallen victim to fashion’, as Humphrys claims. It was, in fact, through insight that the changes to the dictionary were made. Whilst on this occasion the changes may have been rash, editors were able to spot the evolution of communication, and a skew towards telecommunications. Recognising this, they attempted to cater to those who were pushing the boat out – which is not a terrible thing, as Humphrys may want you to think. Actually, it is quite the opposite.

Currently, I am writing my coursework online, allowing a vastly superior platform than would have been accessible writing it out by hand. On a computer revisions can be made neatly and quickly, without the need for writing everything out again for every draft. This means that time can now be conserved for improving the quality of one’s writing, and not re-writing everything for the sake of a simple revision.

Sadly, Humphrys’ arguments then pass the point at which his defence of ‘the old way’ turns from noble to ridiculous. Describing ‘the relentless onward march of the texters’ through comparison to the tyrannous ways of Genghis Khan is absurd and the implication that texters are tearing apart of the English language is even more so. Such an attack on those wishing to communicate efficiently and cheaply is indefensible, especially since – at the time – typing out a grammatically correct sentence would have been an arduous task.

‘Pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary,’ continues the writer, spreading the air of paranoia through the use of the aforementioned hyperbolic descriptions. Yes, omission of punctuation is rife in texting and it can become a mouthful to read, but is this ‘pillaging’? Do their omissions really prevent others from using punctuation?

Of course not. The use of this intentionally overly-emotive language is not sheerly out of anger or fear, but to provoke hysteria from readers. A blatant use of scaremongering in order to bring the public onto the writer’s side. Having fallen to scaring readers onto his side, Humphrys has shown again that it is fear, and not reasoning, that fuels his war with the texters.

This failure to provide actual reasoning is backed up by failure to provide actual proof. Claims that abbreviations and acronyms – as created by the texters – are destroying our language are false. This is largely because many of them were not in fact created by the texters. OMG, possibly the most common acronym within texting, can be dated back to a 1917 letter from a Lord Fisher to one Sir Winston Churchill, one of Britain’s great defenders – a role that Humphrys desperately attempts to emulate. Furthermore, many common abbreviations used in texting were detailed in a 1942 dictionary of abbreviations. The implications of this are such that they not only undermine the very title of Humphrys’ article, but also the ironic claims such as that answer-phone (corrected from answerphone by spell-check) should well be the grotesque ‘ansafone’.

Closing out his article, Humphrys speaks of his regret over the death of the hand-written letter, as it was enveloped by the email. He also claims that the ever-changing abbreviations of texting will come to dominate. This won’t be the case, and whilst some abbreviations may be adopted, if we all attempted to prevent the evolution of language then we never would have reached the stage which some so wish to defend. Besides, no one has ever intended to press the colon, dash and bracket keys in succession without wishing to type an emoticon.