From New York City, this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language.

I'm John McWater, and I'm going to start out today by answering another one of these

questions that a lot of you have.

And then we're going to go from that question to something that's related but different.

So let's start with something that I'm asked so much that I forget that it's a question.

This is what I think any linguist who works with the public at all is used to being asked

now.

And for us, it's kind of a frustrating question, and I'm going to show you why.

Here's the question.

What has social media done to language?

And I think many people are waiting for me to say that it's created some sort of harm or

that it's created, some sort of transformation.

But you know, if somebody asks, what has social media done to language?

What has the effect been of social media on language?

It's hard because the real answer to that question is the following.

Nothing.

Social media has done nothing to language.

I mean, it depends on what you mean by language.

Social media is technically a form of writing for one thing, and there is actually no evidence

that the way people write on social media affects in any significant way, they're written

compositions, for example.

So to the extent that we can't help but think of languages writing, the answer is nothing

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