Instant messaging “a linguistic renaissance” for teens

University of Toronto researchers Sali Tagliamonte and Derek Denis have found that instant messaging, or IM, “language” is not almost as harmful to teenagers’ ability to communicate as some parents and teachers had feared.

In fact IM “speak” permits teenagers the opportunity to express themselves with a mixture of colloquial and formal language.

Or “register” as my high school English teacher referred to it, the differing use of language depending on whom one is speaking to.

LOL (laugh out loud), OMG (oh my god), and TTYL (talk to you later) made up just 2.4 per cent of the vocabulary of IM conversations – an “infinitesimally small” proportion, say the researchers. And rumours of the demise of you would appear to have been greatly exaggerated: it was preferred to u a whopping 9 times out of 10. Tagliamonte and Denis suggest that the use of such short forms is confined mostly to the youngest users of IM.

gr8 hey?