Digital Smarts - Are New Rules of Language Evolving Online?

In a new book called Because Internet, Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch explores the deep forces that shape human language and influence the way we communicate with one another. She explains how the year you first accessed the Internet determines how you talk online; how ~sparkly tildes~ became widely recognized as sarcasm punctuation; whether emojis are replacing words; and why Internet dialects like doge, lolspeak, and snek are linguistically significant. Because Internet is essential reading for anyone who's ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message or wondered where memes come from, or for parents who are trying to communicate intelligently with their children by texts.