"Within a very few years, the Internet has emerged from obscurity to dominate many of our lives. In some areas, e-mail has already almost totally replaced more conventional forms of correspondence; and for an increasing number of people, the World Wide Web is the first port of call for most types of information enquiry and the first resort for most types of leisure activity. This has been an extraordinarily rapid communications revolution." What effect is it having on our language? How radical are the changes it brings to the way that we address each other?