Here is the opening paragraph of David Crystal’s essay, “2b or Not 2b”:
Last year, in a newspaper article headed “Ih8 txt msgs. How texting is wrecking our language,” John Humphrys argued that texters are “vandals who are […] destroying [our language]; pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary. And they must be stopped”
Q1. How does Crystal utilize John Humphrys’ claim in his essay?
Q2. Do you agree with Humphrys’ argument?
eonjoopark
UB English 101: Spring 2015 
Crystal uses Humphrys’ claim in his essay to back up his own same opinion on the matter. He uses it as emphasis and as another source of similar writing to his to add effectiveness to his thesis. By quoting someone else, there is a bigger impression left as outside sources are brought in. I do not agree with Humphrys’ argument. It is not an issue of making a new language of texting. If the individual has the mental capacity to spell words correctly this isn’t an issue. Education teaches us how to spell. Texting is meant to be a lazy way of communication.
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Crystal is using Humphrys’ claim as an outside source, using someone elses opinion can be a way to say that there are other people out there who feel the same way he does. It can be a way to strengthen his points and get he point across more effectively. I agree in a way with his opinion. We are in a way creating our own language while almost completely disregarding the english language. But texting is a way to quickly talk with someone else and some people are too lazy to spell the entire word out. This is how our generation communicates, quickly and in a lazy way.
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Crystal uses Humphrys as an outside source that shares his opinion. He also is very specific in the source he picked as someone who is versed in literature therefore giving him a valid voice on the issue. Humphrys is a newspaper journalists which means that he has read and digested a lot of literature and continues to on a daily basis which means that he can spot overarching trends of writing. all this makes Crystals claim valid and reliable in his article. as far as agreeing with the issue i personally don’t read much new literature that ever seems to show such errors that both Crystal and Humphrys discuss outside of texting. also since i to use the text lingo for convenience i am probably part of the problem. i can understand where they are coming from and they are probably right, but as for me i don’t particularly have an opinion on the matter and don’t have the credentials to have a voice anyway
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Crystal uses Humphrys as an outside source that states his point of view.He also uses some ideas in the source to be specific in his analysis. I agree with Humphrys argument because now texters are using their own communication or language to chat with their friends. This generation, texting is more popular then speaking because everyone you see in the bus, train, restaurant, anywhere, is looking on his phone for texting. People abbreviate a lot especially students that’s why when they are writing an essay, there are a lot mistake but fortunately, technology has made our lives much easier because the Word Document rectifies when it is not well written. Nowadays, abbreviation in texting is cut the word shorter in order to be fast but not all know how to abbreviate.
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Crystal uses Humphrey’ quote as a justification of his point of view. I personally vigorously dispute with the Humphrys’ argument. To me, those who claim that people using a new set of spelling and words are vandals of languages, look arrogant to me. Languages are not holy grails that needs to be kept clean. They are meant to be changed upon people’s need, as they are tools of communication. Few hundreds years ago, many educated people had criticized people writing stories in English, which was considered vulgar, instead of Latin; it is ironic for me to see people making claims like that, as Humphry would have been attacked of ruining languages if he were lived few centuries ago.
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crystal uses other person’s paper as a source for crystal point and state his own word. He is using texting as his argument point. I totally agree with Humphry’s argue point because the since most of people are using the text in the social media to communicate with people, they are starting to use their own communication method to talk with other people. If I support the Humphry’s point I would say in my high school life there is lots of word I could not understand because those words are from the internet media. I had to look those words up to what it actually means. I think it is pretty much showing that you can’t communicate with other people well if you are using the words that your group can only understand. I carfully assume that those words will lead to cause the problems of blocking communication with different generation people.
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Crystal uses Humphry’s claim as an opening to support her idea. It is a very strong and powerful quote, because the vocabulary that he used was aggressive and straightforward. The quote emphasizes what she’ll be saying in this article. Personally, I am not a literacy fan, so I don’t think texting is as bad as what Humphry emphasized. But in someway, I do agree the new technologies in this world are replacing some of the old fashion way. A lot of things are becoming digital instead of paper.
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In the essay “2b or Not 2b,” David Crystal starts his essay by using John Humphry’s claim. Humphry argues that texting is destroying our language and that it must be stopped. However, Crystal believes the exact opposite and through Humphry’s claim, he makes his argument stronger, as Humphry’s persuasion would draw up even the slightest assent and Crystal now persuade them back with his relatively longer and more informative essay – making his argument stronger. With the second part of the question, I do agree and simultaneously disagree with Humphry’s argument. Texters are definitely vandalizing the language, but would they be able communicate through vandalized language if they did not understand what they were saying? To vandalize a language, – which they use to communicate – the vandals would have to first know what they plan to destroy. So although vandalizing is bad, some would learn the language which would ultimately lower the illiteracy rate as Crystal would argue.
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In David Crystal’s essay “2b or Not 2b,” he utilizes the quote as a supporting claim that backs his thesis. John Humphrys’ claim is that texters are vandalizing the current form of English and harming the language by using shortened and broken English. And since the quote is from a very respectable source, a newspaper, this quote is very effective in supporting the author’s main idea. Also having a quote which takes a firm stand on one of the extremes, in this case, against the texters vandalizing the language, gives the author a leeway from the extreme end of the spectrum which gives him some room to drift away from the extreme and able him to have some what neutral stance in the matter compared to the quote’s author.
I am neutral in regard to the idea that texting(shortened writings) is destroying the language. I think to some level this is right because the language might be vandalized through needless shortening of words, sentences and so on. But language has changed and always have been changing since it is a tool that we use. And right now the tool needs fit right into our current society which favors fast paced communication especially among young population. So I see it as a part of the evolution of language as a tool.
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David Crystals uses John Humphrys’ claim as a contrasting views on text messaging in which he mean to differ. Crystals then points out that abbreviated form of English have predated back before text messaging was introduced. He also used studies from a team at Conventry University to show that we require strong understanding of English before we can play around with abbreviated form of it. Therefore I strongly believe and agrees with David Crystals claim that what texting is bringing upon us is but an evolution in our language.
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Crystal uses Humphry’s claim in order to build up on his thesis. While Humphry claims that texting is ruining the English language, Crystal believes that “it helps rather than hinders literacy” and these two authors have quite different point of views on this issue. Personally, I agree and at the same time disagree with Humphry’s agreement since I believe that we have a choice, whether we want to shorten our words and phrases or if we want to type it out. And since texting is an informal and quick way of communicating, I don’t think it is necessary to use perfect grammar but, in some cases people rely on it too much and shorten needless words which may seem as ruining the English language.
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David Crystal is utilizing John Hymphrys’ claim as a way to build up the introduction so he can state where he is on this issue, and possibly transition it further to prove his point. I do not fully agree with John because texting may in some way be affecting our language, but it is not as if we use texting language when we write our school papers. Sure, people may be texting everyday and using acronyms more than usual, but they also go to school everyday, so it is not as if the language they learned back in elementary school is becoming obsolete because they text everyday. In fact, they learn more than they lose.
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In David Crystal’s “2b or Not 2b,” he argues strongly against texting. In order to support his claim he used John Humphrys’ claim to try to reinforce it. However, I don’t think i would agree with that claim. Especially the way Crystal states that texters are “vandals who are […] destroying [our language]; pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary. And they must be stopped.” I think that is a bit extreme to say. If anything I would say that it does a small dent into our language but I believe most people know the difference between abbreviations in texting and actual writing. I also feel as if most people today actually spell out words completely instead of writing abbreviated, which might have something to do with spell check. Either way I think that they are blowing the “problem” out of proportion.
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