A Question

[Page Stephens]

Has anyone out there investigated the difference between normal
conversation/writing and online usage?

It is trivially obvious that accents are lost in online usage but what about
sentence structure, spelling, etc.?

I know from my personal experience that thanks to spelling checkers my
spelling has improved but if I first write an upload by using something like
Microsoft Word occasionally I even change the structure of my sentences.

I would guess that at least online Microsoft due to its market share is in
the progress of creating grammatical standards of usage and spelling on
those of us who are computer literate and that Microsoft's standards are
rapidly becoming the norms by which we judge our own use of English,
American, Scottish, Irish, Australian, Indian English, and all of the
dialects of the above. I have even used used my Microsoft spell checker in
order to vet this message before I send it to you.

As an old anthropologist I am not attempting to make any judgment on the
virtues or lack of virtues of this phenomenon. I do think, however, that it
would be one hell of a good dissertation topic for some young linguist.

Page Stephens