Prompted by a serious article talking about the iPhone possibly changing carriers, I ask you this, DRL. What do you think of the drifting of internet terms and phrases into business, classroom, and official settings? Have you noticed it, and if so, do you think this is a good thing, a bad thing, or just a sign of language development in action?

Specifically, I point to the phrase "pile of fail" in said article, describing AT&T. Hardly "proper" English.

i think slang should be used sparingly, it really makes me angry when big companies(and my friends for that matter) use slang in ads/conversation.

I think language is constantly changing and this is just a natural progression.

Auto-Complete is the antithesis to your argument. The same applies to Blackberries or high-end Smartphone. AC allows people to not text like a moron. I do not know one iPhone user that texts or emails like an idiot.

Alternatively, the proliferation of cheap 12-key phones with multi-tap texting will bring down English, not Smartphones. Your heart is in the right place, though

It's quite natural, yes. Spain speaks Spanish, yes? Look at Mexico: they have their own words for objects, and they don't speak with a lisp. Same goes for how Americans and Canadians speak English differently from the British (not just accent, but words as well). This is just the next step.

What argument?

Discussion, whatever. Stop nitpicking. My point was that we approached a critical level in language dimorphism, but I think the prevalence of smartphones will countermand that.

Additionally, anyone who says that marketing companies using slang in ad campaigns is bad is an idiot.

The point of marketing is to identify with a product or service's target market. IDK MY BFF JILL is a good ad campaign because a) you remember it. you remember it because you identify with the culture (by either being a part of it or being disgusted by it). b) it is relevant to the target audience, ie: texters, emailers, et al.

The fact of the matter is--as was said--is that languages change. Ignoring that fact is reactionary and ignorant.

My main take-away point is that "idk my bff jill" is not a language morphology, it's just bad English. It's less of a language change and more of a dumbing down of consumers.

I'm not talking about chatspeak. I'm talking internet slang/phrases. I'm pretty sure the article I linked was written on a normal PC with spellchecking. "pile of fail" is not English one would find in an English textbook, is my point. Arguably, phrases referring to fail, the proliferation of "epic", >9000, etc, are becoming more prevalent in not only online communities but mainstream media as well. That is the point of my discussion.

Who cares if people start using the term epic as an adjective. That's what it is. It's just fashionable usage of terminology. It comes and it goes. No one says "square" in the context of the 60s and 70s, and the world didn't end because the hippies used a noun as an adjective.

Well as we are using more and more technology, it's not really that we're falling away from our language, it's that our means of communication through technology are becoming a part of our everyday language. Now while I don't think that it's very proper or right to use this type of language in our everyday speech, it's obviously happening little by little. Our society is relying more and more on technology in my opinion, and this is one of the effects it's bearing.

Alright, this is what I was trying to get at. If you mistook my original post to be taking one side or the other, my apologies for being unclear. I just want opinions.

We spoke in acronyms frequently before the comeuppance of the internet. Why should "internet" acronyms be different just because they are from the digital world?

THOR is right. In the end, it won't matter, we will change.

I did have a huge post, I typed it 3 ♥♥♥♥ times, but my ♥♥♥♥ keyboard would stop typing and when I would hit backspace it would go back a page, deleting my post. It went on and on how this is just a stupid debate. I hope my message comes clear.

Words are either passing fads, or they are embraced by the dictionary.

Epic will probably die out as a fad word. Google as a verb will probably remain in the lexicon.

slang in use Is not that bad, but when one of the kids i know said "lol" out loud instead of laffing, i thought:
this has gone too far.
either way english will change:
look how quickly we grow words:
150 years ago, if you said Tsunami, people would look at you like "WTF?"
but now its in the dictionary.
200 years from know, i predict, "English" will be a fusion of English, Mandern chinese, and Spanish.
not that that's a bad thing, that's the logical progression twords a "unified language".