Death of the Sentence

A child’s first sentence is a pivotal moment in her development when she is recognized as now capable of communicating complete thoughts. But in the 21st century, thoughts have become increasingly mediated by technology, and language more careless and informal as a result. Are texts, emails, tweets, and emojis responsible for the decline of the formal, grammatical sentence? Are our writing standards getting worse, or are they simply changing with the times? And what effect—good or bad—will new communicative styles have on participation in the democratic polity? The philosophers share complete thoughts with Jan Mieszkowski from Reed College, author of Crises of the Sentence.