Between txtspk, l33t and kitteh, some folks are amazed that today's most wired kids can write at all.

We shouldn't be so worried, says linguistics Professor David Crystal According to the BBC, Crystal sees the trend as nothing new:

"If you collected a huge pile of messages and counted all the whole words and the abbreviations, the fact of the matter is that less than 10% would be shortened."

Even older people who claimed to be passed by, unable or unwilling to text would have done something similar when they were young.

"In the past comics such as the Dandy and Beano would have had quizzes where you had to guess a sentence from letters and pictures.

"The only difference now is that people are using it with mobile phones."

In fact, some txtspk is quite old. As Crystal explains in another article,

Texters use deviant spellings - and they know they are deviant. But they are by no means the first to use such nonstandard forms as cos "because", wot "what", or gissa "give us a". Several of these are so much part of English literary tradition that they have been given entries in the Oxford English Dictionary. "Cos" is there from 1828 and "wot" from 1829.

Not everyone is a fan, however. Blogger Lady Bracknell, who confesses she is addicted to texting from her phone, does not stoop to txtspk. She does not wish to promote the decline of literacy:

And yes, I do deplore the effect that "text speak" has had on the literacy levels of people in their teens and twenties. Although not half as much as I deplore the education authorities who permit this bastardisation of our fine language to be used in written exams. (It's twenty years since I was a student teacher. Even then, I was advised that making the little darlings correct every "could of" and "should of" stifled their precious creativity. And, as someone who had legitimately lost a mark in her mock RE A level exam for splitting an infinitive, I took this rather ill.)

Erin of Erin's Fluency Blog has similar concerns about plans to allow txtspk in the classroom:

How will allowing “text-speak” in the classroom affect the country’s literacy rate? If “text-speak” is allowed in schools, should it be allowed on tests of literacy? It will be interesting to see the affects (if any) this decision has on these high school students as they enter college and the professional world. Potentially, correct spelling could become a lost art. If for four years straight a student never had to write the word “probably,” but instead, only “prbly,” I can see that it could become confusing. Is it “probably” or “probobly” or “probbably?”

Paul Groves wonders if it isn't too early to be assessing the effects of txtspk on the English language. I wonder how txtspk is deployed by students of different socioeconomic classes and ethnicities, and in different nations. In particular, I'm wondering how the acceptance of or resistance to txtspk mirrors earlier resistance to Ebonics or Scots. Which matters more: the context in which the language is used or who is speaking it?

The linguist behind Semantically Challenged believes that txtspk is a sign of the vitality, rather than the decline, of the English language:

But if you look at the idea of text speak, it epitomizes how amazing English is. Think about it; with only 160 characters and a small keypad to work with per message, instead of people finding themselves unable to communicate, written language has been able to evolve and adjust so people can still express themselves freely. The whole point of language is communication, and if it can't even do that, then it's not working properly.

What are your thoughts? In this age of tiny screens and Twitter, do you find yourself using txtspk?

Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.