The tyranny of spelling

Simon Jenkins praises the Scottish decision to allow students to use text-messaging spelling in school tests.

Can texting finally spur revolution? Young people have evolved both a new script and a cost-effective reason for using it. They are breaking free of spelling dogma and expanding the alphabet with emoticons. Texting is the shorthand of the computer age. It is concise, cutting through the verbal jargon by which the professional classes seek to exclude the less educated. The Txtr's A-Z, a dictionary compiled by Andrew John, points out that mobile texting literally puts a price on waffle, while "ingenious abbreviations have been contrived to capture a vaguely philosophical thought, a loving sentiment or a beautifully crafted obscenity". He describes what is a chaotic literary pidgin.

I can live without "the expanding alphabet" of emoticons, frankly.