SMS
"Texting"
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 SMS Texting, "texting", is way popular. Texting
is possible through SMS, an acronym for Small Message Services, and
is available world wide. Texting has the capabilities of email with
the advantage of immediate receipt. Send, beep, right to your phone
which is always there and always on, even in the shower. Throw in
texting's informality, shorthand, and conversation like usage and
wow.
When email was invented there were two camps. One wanted
email to be formal and one wanted it to be informal. If you spend
lots of time composing emails, trying to get those words just right,
maybe so much time you should just call, you may be in the first
camp. That doesn't necessarily put you in first camp but if you ding
someone on a type-o it does. I am in the second camp.
SMS
messaging was pay-per-letter and creative abbreviations were used to
save letters like on Vanity Plates. 2, 4, c, r, u, and y for
example. Now its just easier, and faster, to use
shorthand.
Today's texting shorthand is a combination of
acronyms, gangsta, ebonics, old school and phonetics. This language
is what puts texting up and over on Blackberry and Palm PDA mobile
email users. PDA users for the most part still write sentences using
words.They communicate full thoughts asking multiple questions and
relaying complete information. Texting is a conversation. A very hip
conversation.
Text language you may already know:
2 - To or Too
4 - For
bf - Boy friend
gf - Girl
friend
G - Gangsta
c - see
cus - Because
ne1 - Anyone
ez - Easy
sup - What's up
b4 - Before
2nite - Tonight
brb - Be Right Back
g2g: - Got To Go
idk - I Don't Know (surprisingly the most common text acronym
used by teens)
idc - I Don't Care
lol - Laugh(ing) Out Loud / Lots of Love
omg: Oh My God (or
Gosh)
k or kk: Okay
143 or <3 - I love you
ily - I Love You
w8 - Wait
h8 - Hate
l8 - Late
l8r - Later
w/e - Whatever
r - Are
u - You
y - Why
ppl - People
Throw in a few of your own and you're
texting. Google has huge glossaries of obscure text language for
your entertainment.
SMS is a tool and can be used in many
good ways. Missing Child Alerts from the Police are texted to
subscribers. Universities and Colleges use SMS to text students
across sprawling campuses with broadcast messages communicating
information including alerts of danger. Pagers and callbacks from IT
people are replaced with texts from their networks.
There are
bad uses too. Students have been caught in elaborate cheating
schemes all around the world. One school in England nabbed nearly
300 SMS cheaters in 2004. Bear in mind SMS can send a picture of an
entire exam page in one message, not just a single answer. Teachers
complain that texting during class is lowering grades. Texting has
replaced Playstation as an alternative to studying. Small, easy to
conceal, silent.
There's Parental Control Software (AT&T
Smart Limits) you can use to block out school hours, or sleep hours,
or grounded hours. Get it, learn it, use it.
Parties, and
even riots (Sydney 2005), are orchestrated using broadcast text
messages. Texting is also an effective tool against the Security
Guard's walkie-talkie. If the person you're talking to gets a text
it may be about you.
A Malaysian court even ruled that its
legal to divorce through texting as long as you are "clear and
unequivocal". I'm a little fuzzy on this one, maybe "i h8 u"
has to be included in the text message for it to stick.
But
what about real life people like you and me?
OK, I get text
with picture messages from frat parties at U of I and no longer
complain about my Son's cell bill. Which brings me to another
point. Paparazzi isn't just for drunken
celebrities anymore. What should be kept under your blouse
(OMG) can be sent like Seven Steps to Kevin Bacon. Have a
nice job interview and please wear your cleanest sorority
baseball cap. Small wonder we outsource off-shore.
Thanks to technology we are required to be less literate than
ever before. Spellcheck fixes my documents before I print them and
my emails before I send Corrections happen on the fly and are
barely noticeable to me. Most people seem happy to have the computer
relieve them of the burden of
spelling.
Example; I was called to a Client's
Sports Bar, its Server crashed. The Server took orders punched
in by waitstaff, routed drink orders to the bar, food orders to the
kitchen, and billed accordingly. I saw first hand that a
waitress used to pushing a picture of a cheeseburger and bottle
of beer has no clue how to do things any other way. Poke a picture,
swipe a Credit Card, ask for a signature, done.
Customers were asked to pay anywhere from fifty
cents to five dollars for a beer, if they got one at all.
Most waitresses just hid or charged what they knew how to make
change for which was pretty damned funny to watch. Three dollars
from a ten is not eight
Carmen Electra.
The staff in this case went from functionally illiterate to
malfunctioning illiterate in minutes when their computers went
down. Guess what? Thanks to texting there's a new
generation of malfunctioning illiterates on the way. h8 2 say it
lol.
Here's an actual example of a "My Summer Vacation" paper
written by a 13 year old.
She wrote: "My smmr hols wr CWOT.
B4, we used 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :- kids FTF. ILNY,
it's a gr8 plc."
In translation: "My summer holidays were a
complete waste of time. Before, we used to go to New York to see my
brother, his girlfriend and their three screaming kids face to face.
I love New York. It's a great place."
.
g2g Don't forget to write/text, idk, its your call, idc,
and that's Cocktail Talk. w/e
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Craig Phillips
CN Consulting,
Inc. | |
