David Crystal response

It was apparent from the start of “txtng the gr8 db8” that David Crystal assumes his audience to be negligent of even the most basic information. Defining billion as “thousand million” and trillion as “million million,” Crystal shows that the average reader of his book likely doesn’t know how to count beyond the hundred millions place (4). Stepping away from the numerical values, he proceeds by highlighting other incredibly complex terms such as “the mobile phone (as it is known in British English – mobile for short), or cellphone (in American English – cell, for short)” (5). On the very next page, the little known term “characters” is also defined. Words like “contraction,” “geek,” and “download” are even included in a glossary in the back of the book, just in case the reader needs a refresher course on his elementary schooling.
My question for the author here is simply, “why?” I fully understand the benefits of delving into other cultures and the need to define unfamiliar jargon but to state such basic information is to undermine the intelligence of his reader. Personally, I find the entire book would improve were it to be more succinct. The reader would then appreciate receiving proper respect and also have a much lucid understanding of what he is being told.
Furthermore, I can thoroughly appreciate clever authors who can include an element of irony into their writing. The key for a clever author, however, is to be as subtle as possible and not to force these elements. Crystal fails in this regard including passages like “If a newspaper uses a jokey headline about texting, almost certainly a word like gr8 will be in it. I wouldn’t be surprised to find it in a book one day,” (22). Such instances serve only to further diminish any positive relationship that could possibly be developing between reader and text.
Although I criticize heavily the manner by which Crystal approaches the topic as well as how he considers its elements later, I do largely agree with his overall stance on the issue (highlighted very well on the bottom of the eighth page). Unfortunately, I do not see this book as prompting any kind of significant developments in my own thoughts nor do I find many of Crystal’s arguments convincing despite the fact that I already agree with what he is contending. Crystal combats, for example, the notion of texting as a foreign language. I agree with this stance entirely, but I disagree that the author is justified in supporting his argument by referencing that half of a “text poem” consists of Standard English (16). If I were to type a twenty word sentence and utilice sólo diez palabras inglesas, hace llamada de Cristal inglés? I wouldn’t, but apparently, he would.