John McWhorter Quotes

Texting is fingered speech. Now we can write the way we talk.

Although many texters enjoy breaking linguistic rules, they also know they need to be understood.

I think when you're starting up a situation, it's really fun texting or BBMing or whatever.

People respond faster to you on a text than an e-mail. Why is that? Why will they ignore an e-mail, but get back to a text?

Smart phones and social media expand our universe. We can connect with others or collect information easier and faster than ever.

Now we're e-mailing and tweeting and texting so much, a phone call comes as a fresh surprise. I get text messages on my cell phone all day long, and it warbles to alert me that someone has sent me a message on Facebook or a reply or direct message on Twitter, but it rarely ever rings.

Who would know but ten years ago that kids would be texting each other all the time, that that would be one of their main forms of communication.

There's a shift to mobile apps; I'd like to see a more pervasive communications experience, and I think Skype can contribute to that.

Twitter is the ultimate service for the mobile age - its simplification and constraint of the publishing medium to 140 characters is perfectly complementary to a mobile experience. People still need longer stuff, but they see the headline on Twitter or Facebook.

Social media is not the same in 2013 as it was in 2003 - or even 2008 or 2011. You didn't carry around AOL chat in your pocket or look at it when you were in class.

Texting is a lot like an answering machine. If you don't want to talk to somebody, it's like screening your calls. To me, it's a way of communication, but not one that I favor.

Down on the ground, we seem to do anything but make lengthy, robust monologues. We can communicate in an instant almost anywhere. Gone is the slow old letter - itself a monologue, a sort of considered performance of best self - and in its place is the e-mail, the text, the SMS, the tweet.

People banging away on their smartphones are fluently using a code separate from the one they use in actual writing, but a code it is, to which linguists are currently devoting articles.

I am always texting!

Texting has reduced the number of waste words, but it has also exposed a black hole of ignorance about traditional - what a cranky guy would call correct - grammar.

Communications is the biggest driver of frequency of use of anything. Think about how many times a day you check your email on your phone or text someone or message someone.

Texting isn't writing. It's not like letter writing. Texting is short scriptwriting. It's a collaborative soap opera where nothing happens.

I treat Twitter like I'm talking to my friends.

I find texting to be kind of a safe space.

My cell phone is the number one way for me to communicate with my fans. I love the direct connection I can make via social media whether I am on the road or at home.

If you get a WhatsApp message, you're probably going to open it. That's the interesting thing.

Clearly texting, SMS and chat are very different than writing a letter or email.

My phone is all ping-ping, eBay alerts.

If you're looking for ways of getting quick communication, maybe texting is the way to go. People can't walk these days without having one hand balancing a smart phone. If that's the way people are going to live, it is the case that something that vibrates in their hand is going to get their attention more quickly than an email.

In today's world of blogging and tweeting, conversation has become a bit more staccato. In many ways we're more efficient, but I think the amount of longer conversations that radiated more warmth may have gone down.