Internet-speak isn’t a bad thing

The internet has greatly expanded the volume and visibility of informal writing. (Duh.) In “Because Internet,” the linguist Gretchen McCulloch reviews the ways the online environment is changing how we communicate. If you are concerned about digital tools dumbing down written English, or leaving young people with lazier syntactic habits, this is definitely not the book for you. If, on the other hand, you are interested in how language actually works (the rules are just collective agreements, constantly renegotiated), and how the internet is changing those rules, it definitely is.

Ms McCulloch is doubly suited to this subject, as a scholar and part of the first generation to grow up with social media (her capsule bio: “I’m a linguist, and I live on the internet”). Her grand theme is linguistic inventiveness in the expanded field of digital communication.