Evolution of short text message language
I’m still fairly young at 25-years-old and I only owned about one or two mobile phones before predictive text became ubiquitous in mobile devices so I didn’t really get into the whole SMS language thing with messages like “c u soon” and “wat time u ova” where saving individual letters meant shaving half the time off writing a text message. I admit I’m no master of the English language but I like to spell my words properly and completely with capital letters where appropriate and punctuation - so it’s good to see that SMS culture slowly died off with the introduction of predictive text, mobile devices with full QWERTY keyboards such as Blackberries, web-enabled devices, the availability of email on mobile devices and uptake of short message micro-blogging services such as Twitter, Jaiku and Plurk.
Why the ACT Government has only in the last year or so decided it was cute to try and use SMS language on anti-DWT (Driving While Texting) awareness signs like the “DRIVE N TXT U B NEXT” is beyond me … they missed the boat by about 10 years and is embarrassing.
I wonder how many people still use SMS language and shortcuts given that technology nowadays means its no longer necessary. From what I’ve observed people in general want their messages to be well-formed, correctly spelt and appropriately punctuated and formatted - and that applies to phone SMSs and other short messages such as those posted on Twitter.
What are your thoughts on SMS language? Is it dead? Is it cute? Does it have its place still? Was it a temporary travesty of the English language?
Obviously you’ve never spent time over at Yahoo Answers. The SMS language is annoying to anyone over the age of 18, and to anyone under, it’s not thought of as anything other than just how you speak normally. My guess is that anyone using twitter has enough maturity to be using proper spelling - but don’t get me started on US vs. Aussie spelling. That’s a whole ‘nother topic altogether.
I don’t have a qwerty keyboard on my phone and I haven’t worked out predictive text so my texts are a combo of shortcuts and full spelling and grammar. However, when I do have the use of a full keyboard I make full and proper use of the English language (usually).
I see a lot of people still using SMS on Twitter, to get their messages to fit into the 140 character limit.
Read the messages of someone really young - say, under 18 - and you’ll find SMS abbreviated speak is alive and well. It’s cropping up on resumes and in official job letters too. It’s got nothing to do with predictive text - I barely use mine - and more to do with cramming as much as possible into 140 characters.
Just on a little side note - I recently found out that SMS messages are designed to piggy back on the status messages sent from your handset to the mobile towers, so in actual fact it does not cost carriers *anything at all* to carry SMS traffic. That 20c a pop or whatever they are charging is pure gouging
I am a fan of proper spelling and always try to use punctuation even when I text. If you can’t say what you want to say in less than 140 characters or if it’s a question that is going to require a teensy bit of to-and-fro… pick up the sodding phone and CALL the person! Communicate in a slightly more old fashioned way and that way, nobody needs to spend ten minutes trying to figure out what the hell the other person has tried to say in TXTese (you reading this, MiL?!?!)
I really don’t like it and write all my messages in full with correct punctuation. (im 23)