As the din of plaints that Twitter is depraving the language of young people, and language in general, rises — see, for example “Up in ur internets, shortening all the words” in LLog, here — it’s worth looking back to other recent dire threats of this sort: texting and IM-ing, cellphone use, and before that, e-mail itself (and back to rock music, movies, tv and radio, the telephone, and, earlier, the telegraph, and so on, including the spread of literacy).
Here, from The Onion of June 14, 2006, is a report on the baleful effects of texting, as it spread from the young to infect even their grandmothers:
Nation’s Grandmothers Swept Up In Textile-Messaging Craze
Sweet old ladies, corrupted by the new media.
