Quote:
Originally posted by Larry_OHF:
Language grows and changes to fit the culture and needs of those using it.
Its a tool for expression...to get an idea across. Don't we live by enough restrictive rules in life without having to worry about this?
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Well yes, but there is a good reason for those 'restrictive rules' - ease of communication. There are standard spelling, grammatical, and morphological rules because if it were a free-for-all understanding what someone has written would be much more difficult. Especially in English with the excess of homophones. Whenever someone here mixes up there/their/they're or whether/weather it takes me a few seconds to work out what they mean, which correct spelling avoids.
There's also a big difference between spoken and written communication. Spoken communication can afford to be much more fluid and casual. You can say 'alotta' and because of the way it sounds it is easily understood, but written it is more difficult to figure out. (I also don't really know why you would want to write 'alotta' since writing 'a lot of' isn't any more long or difficult, and it isn't exacly formal or pompous to write 'a lot of'...).
I also think there's a difference in how language changes because of the culture and the time, and the addition of words that reflect people being lazy or ignorant with regard to correct usage. Adding words because of new technology, or because there isn't a really appropriate word to suit the situation (like the way sportscasters like to make verbs from nouns, which does come with its own set of provisos, like with the unfortunate 'lactating' some athletes were said to be doing
) is different to words like 'supposably' becoming acceptable, which have only come about because people mispronounced 'supposedly' - that sort of thing offends me because there's no need to create the new word supposably because there's a perfectly good real word that actually makes morphological sense.