@mjwl2006 wrote:
I think ebay is trying to get 'hip' with the 'in crowd'. Millennials need constant praise and reinforcement, from the studies I've read, in order to feel valued, appreciated and to stick-around for more than ten minutes. (Unlike GenXers such as myself who are happy with any scrap thrown our way.)
Yes, and unlike Baby Boomers like me, who were taught to accept criticism and correction as a necessary part of learning (and life, for that matter), at a time when A grades were rare things.
Perhaps thirty years from now no one will remember how to write ordinary messages or thoughts, and these sorts of shorthand images and the acronyms that are now everywhere (LOL) will become the dominant means of informal, non-verbal communication, something akin to a new International Sign Language.
Young people are already having trouble with cursive English and getting impatient with all the letters required to type a normal English word on a smartphone, even with the fastest flying thumbs. Indeed there may need to be whole university departments in the future specializing in teaching and deciphering cursive writing. They'll produce "experts" who will be the only people on earth who can read letters handwritten by people prior to about 1975, when electronic typewriters and later, personal computers, became widely available to the average person. I'm just as guilty as everyone else in this respect -- I can't even recall the last completely handwritten letter I sent to a friend or relative. It might have been around 1980.
As a linguist, I can't help being intrigued by these phenomena. They shape our world in ways that are subtle or amusing in the short run, but can have dramatic effects on language and culture over the longer term.
It's fascinating to consider that due to its marriage with technology, colloquial written English could become a system of hieroglyphics in the future. The same probably holds true for that matter for other major languages of the world whose users are now tied to the digital world.
