Of course txt speak is not regulated or formal, but does that make it bad? I am on very shaky ground here, being a humble maths teacher, but if we look back to the days of Chaucer is it not the case that spelling was much less formal and regulated? We are undoubtedly moving towards greater freedom in what is considered acceptable in written English. I am not advocating anything here, but it entertains me to imagine that this movement may extend to the inclusion of elements of txt speak in formal written English.

I have no data upon which to base my claim that kids are writing more now than they did in my day, but I am pretty certain that the majority of school pupils never wrote anything outside school when I was a teenager (letter and diary writing were largely the preserve of the privileged classes were they not?), whereas even the most disaffected youths today seem to be sending hundreds of texts every month. Again, though, I have to data to support this. Nor do I know whether or not the sending of texts has any effect on broader literacy skills, although my post probably implied such a correlation.

My thinking here is pretty woolly, and I really appreciate your taking the time to share your more coherent thoughts

How formal or regulated is the txt speak? Is there an international standard that can be applied? Does it have a common syntax that governs the arrangement and use of letters to form words? Are there words used in txt speak that mean different things to different groups of people?

The main concern I have over txt speak is the belief that it can challenge written English. Due in a large part to the phonetic nature of txt speak wide differences will appear across the country. So a pupil in the east or the north or the south or the west will spell/write txt speak based on their differing pronunciations. Thus semantics or meaning will be problematic when communicating amongst different groups.

The fact that someone can txt faster than hand-write is neither a positive of negative argument for either mode of communication. In fact it might be suggested that it’s a poor indictment of the education system.

I’m not convinced that young people are writing “vastly more”. One might argue that because they are able to txt and email now compared with 25 years ago this means a vast increase in writing. However I’d be interested in comparing modes and reasons for communicating. I remember writing letters and notes and postcards and diaries, do teenagers these days do vastly more of this?

I don’t suppose that shorthand would get very far - for the last 15 years haven’t we all been expecting that something better than mouse and keyboard will be coming along very soon?