I think it makes perfect sense that “different language patterns yield different patterns of thought” (Wikipedia) It’s a bit like learning a new language that is totally un-related to your own native tongue. When I learned Finnish, I had so much trouble in the beginning because the language doesn’t have any articles. It was a constant struggle to refer to something as ‘the cat’ because I was never fully sure if the other person understood which cat in particular I was talking about. On the other side of the coin, they as Finns had difficulties with pinpointing which article goes where in a sentence because they had no basis of comparison.
Missä on kylpyhuone?
Where is the bathroom?/Where is a bathroom?
The other reading dealt with proper e-mail etiquette. One of the things mentioned was the shorthand that seems to be taking over everyday life today. Could that not be an example of this hypothesis? If everyone begins using this “text speak”, we would ultimately forget the root of the word itself. We would begin thinking like we write because someday a generation would grow up learning that vernacular. As vowels disappear from textspeak, what would happen to the suffix -one because it's become so interchangeable with the number itself? Or the silent h of 'what'? How about the e of 'next' or 'text' or anything ending in the suffix -er?
