re: how teens and adults text, I would be super interested for you to explain your theory!
ok SO. a lot of this comes from various stuff iāve seen on the linguistics of tumblr, but at the heart of it is that people in my generation (at least in the us; idk abt other countriesā timelines on this front) went thru (or are still going thru) our Formative Social Years in an environment where weād regularly interact with even our closest friends on text-only platforms (whether texting or gchat or fb messages or w/e), and b/c so much linguistic/social information is actually conveyed by facial expression and tone of voice, weāve collectively made up all of these textual ways of conveying that in a concise, efficient way
so like, sometimes on this blog iāll talk aboutĀ āstraight peopleā, and sometimes iāll talk aboutĀ āstr8 pplā, and even tho i would pronounce those the same, the first is much more neutral ā it would probably happen in the context likeĀ āiām not sure how i feel about straight people writing stories that center around experiences of homophobiaā ā than the second, which which is much more frustrated/venting ā it would be more likely to crop up in the context ofĀ āall i want is to live quietly in my little queer utopia but no str8 ppl have to come along and heteronomativity UGH #over it #whatever #NOT RLLY OVER ITā. or even with more subtle things like end punctuation:Ā āiām not goingā basically just means iām not currently planning to go to the thing;Ā āiām not going.ā carries much more of a connotation ofĀ āi have seriously considered going and have Reasons for staying at homeā (and note that capital āĀ āi have Reasons for staying at homeā feels different thanĀ āi have reasons for staying at homeā). (and this isnāt even getting into things like shitposting or advanced memeology, but there are specific textual markers that go with things like that, some of which would be pronounced if you read them aloud, but many of which wouldnāt be)
but, crucially, for these kinds of things to carry meaning, they have to be used consistently: if i useĀ āstr8 pplā andĀ āstraight peopleā interchangeably in all contexts (as i do for something likeĀ āthe supreme courtā vsĀ āscotusā), then thereās no way to develop a distinction in meaning between the two ā the only way to do that is to consistently use the different orthographies in different contexts. (to take another example: if something isĀ āgreatā, then itās solidly good. if something isĀ āgr8ā, itās more in the land ofĀ āi canāt quite believe this is as earnest/tacky/tasteless as it is but iām weirdly into it anyway?ā (sometimes with a side helping ofĀ ādo i just enjoy this ironically or do i genuinely enjoy it there is no way of knowing please send helpā))
the upshot of this is that to be fluent in tumblr (or texting, or fb messenger, or w/e) means to actually be paying a lot of attention to subtle points of grammar and spelling, to know when to useĀ ādid u knoā orĀ āurā or even pull out an old-fashioned tip of the hat toĀ āe733T haxxor 5killzā. most of these are very subtle distinctions, the kind of things you feel intuitively rather than write out explicitly, and so itās very hard to convey them concisely and accurately to someone whoās not already immersed in the linguistic environment
and letās be real, people in my parentsā generation arenāt. i mean, sure, many of them have facebook accounts, but these kinds of platforms werenāt around when they were in theirĀ āreally getting to grips with social interactionā years, and their most important social interactions usually donāt take place exclusively online. for me, all of my closest friends are people iāve only interacted with online for more than a year now (with a few briefĀ face-to-face visits when various travel arrangements have allowed), so tumblr, facebook, and gchat are absolutely criticalĀ to my social life and interpersonal interactions; for my parents, their closest friends are people they see in person at work every day, so social media is a light overlay to their social lives, not the thrumming core
as such, my parents donāt grok these distinctions. to themĀ āwhat are you doing?ā means the same thing asĀ ālol wut r u doingā;Ā āgr8ā is just likeĀ āgreatā (andĀ āgr9ā takes some parsing ā¦ ); dogespeak doesnāt have the same distinctive valence that it does to us. since they donāt know about these distinctions, they donāt feel the need to maintain moreĀ āproperā spelling/grammar when texting with a friend ā different people have different set points for this, obvs, but in general i feel likeĀ āstandard (setting aside all the class and racial implications in that term ā¦)Ā spelling and grammarā (with lighter-than-standard punctuation and capitalization) translates toĀ ārelatively neutral/pleasant conversational voiceā, and then deliberate misspellings, abbreviations, letter substitutions, and grammar deviations are markers used to indicate shifts in mood ā i have a vague sense that bitterness tends to collapse down and preserve grammar but weird spelling (ālyk w/e im happy 4 u but pls, i kno u lied 2 get thatā) whereas enthusiasm tends to preserve spelling but weird grammar (āwhat i canāt even no how do air AMAZEā). since people in my parentsā generation donāt realize that doing so unintentionally changes the way their words come across, they feel free to textĀ āpoorlyā (ie with lots of errors/substitutions, generally mixing various text-flagged vocal tones in ways that are often incoherent) in order to do so more quickly (b/c lbr typing everything out can be a painĀ (esp on a non-smartphone), and since parents donāt do it as much, theyāre not necessarily as fast as our spry young fingers on a familiar interface)
so yeah, thatās what i suspect is going on
tl;dr: parents donāt use orthography to mark vocal tone in the way youngfolk do, and thus feel free to condense their texts and otherwise use textspeak. youngfolk are using orthography to mark for tone, and thus text moreĀ ācorrectlyā to preserve their social intentions
