For more than 600 years people have complained that youngsters cannot write proper English anymore. Two universal truths emerge: languages are always changing, and older people always worry that the young are not taking proper care of the language. The problem is that conservatism works differently on writing than it does on speech. Writing is more permanent, so people choose their words carefully and conservatively. It is slow and considered, so people can avoid new usages widely seen as mistakes. It is taught carefully by adults to children, which naturally has some conservative influence on the written language. And it is often edited, so a young journalist with a casual style. may well be edited to a more traditional one by an older editor. Speech is different: instead of permanent, slow, considered and taught, it is impermanent, fast, and learned naturally by children from their surroundings. Speech will— at almost any level of language conservatism—change faster than written language. In this imperfect world, then, written language only partly reflects speech. Younger writers introduce spoken or new words or usages into their writing, annoying their elders as they do. But no one dare to be casual in spelling: English-speakers are stuck with an ancient system. Liberties with grammar—making the written language look like the spoken one— should be few and cautious. Giving the written language a little room to change, but not too much, is the only way to enjoy the best of both stability and vitality. The alternative— perfectly conservative writing—will make writing less and less like the language future generations will speak, and thus less relevant to writing about the world they live in. It can be learned from Paragraph 1 that older people worry that______.