full transcript

From the Ted Talk by John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!!

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Now don't get me wrong, writing has certain advantages. When you write, because it's a conscious pecosrs, because you can look backwards, you can do things with language that are much less likely if you're just talking. For example, imagine a passage from Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:"

"The whole eneaemggnt lasted above twelve hours, till the graduate rearett of the Persians was changed into a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example was given by the pricaipnl leaders and the Surenas himself."

That's beautiful, but let's face it, nobody talks that way. Or at least, they shouldn't if they're interested in rrcpenoidug. That — (leghtaur) is not the way any human being speaks casually.

Open Cloze


Now don't get me wrong, writing has certain advantages. When you write, because it's a conscious _______, because you can look backwards, you can do things with language that are much less likely if you're just talking. For example, imagine a passage from Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:"

"The whole __________ lasted above twelve hours, till the graduate _______ of the Persians was changed into a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example was given by the _________ leaders and the Surenas himself."

That's beautiful, but let's face it, nobody talks that way. Or at least, they shouldn't if they're interested in ___________. That — (________) is not the way any human being speaks casually.

Solution


  1. reproducing
  2. principal
  3. retreat
  4. laughter
  5. process
  6. engagement

Original Text


Now don't get me wrong, writing has certain advantages. When you write, because it's a conscious process, because you can look backwards, you can do things with language that are much less likely if you're just talking. For example, imagine a passage from Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:"

"The whole engagement lasted above twelve hours, till the graduate retreat of the Persians was changed into a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example was given by the principal leaders and the Surenas himself."

That's beautiful, but let's face it, nobody talks that way. Or at least, they shouldn't if they're interested in reproducing. That — (Laughter) is not the way any human being speaks casually.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
young people 5
emergent complexity 2
casual speech 2
fingered speech 2
message board 2


Important Words


  1. advantages
  2. beautiful
  3. casually
  4. changed
  5. conscious
  6. decline
  7. disorderly
  8. edward
  9. engagement
  10. face
  11. fall
  12. flight
  13. graduate
  14. hours
  15. human
  16. imagine
  17. interested
  18. language
  19. lasted
  20. laughter
  21. leaders
  22. passage
  23. persians
  24. principal
  25. process
  26. reproducing
  27. retreat
  28. roman
  29. shameful
  30. speaks
  31. surenas
  32. talking
  33. talks
  34. twelve
  35. write
  36. writing
  37. wrong