New research conducted by Professor Tony McEnery of Lancaster University, reveals that today's teenagers have a measley vocabulary of just over 12,600 words compared with the 21,400 words available to the average 25 to 34 year-old. Apparently the word sequences 'but no' and 'no but' appear almost twice as frequently in teenage speech than in everyone else's, leading to fears that we're rolling out a nation of Vicky Pollards.
What's to blame? 'Technology isolation syndrome,' asserts Professor McEnery. Kids these days spend too long locked into their own worlds, cut off by personal MP3 players and games consoles. Consequently, I suspect, they are now only able to communicate in the form of track listings and videogame mission briefings.
Ah, if only this were the case. You never hear Solid Snake struggling to communicate an unamusing anecdote involving Trevor Dilton and that slag Jane Green behind the Shell garage on Princes Street. Although to be fair, I did skip a lot of the cut-scenes in MGS2, I could have missed something.
