Another year and more grammatical horrors await me. And now I have text message English to contend with. I’d say this was an oxymoron, but how many people know what that means? I believe I am witnessing the end of reasonable and understandable communication, written or otherwise.

I was interested to read of a GCSE candidate who answered a question entirely in the severely truncated word forms used for text messaging. Should it be accepted? Absolutely not. Call costs and the hassle of keying letters led to this trend, although the first text dictionary is no doubt in the publishing pipeline. It’s a novelty. We will see the day when the high street is no longer littered with dim-witted Captain Kirks clutching their prized communicators and we can get back to some real talking and writing.