Msg is clear as joy of txt proves gr8 for society

Far from being rbsh, it is actually gr8 for society. Experts believe that new forms of communication such as mobile phone texting, email and instant messaging are helping us stay in touch with each other.

And a new study has shown that far from being a scourge of grammar and correct spelling, users of instant messaging and texting are actually much more likely to use the Queen's English than the abbreviations that annoy purists.

[via News.scotsman.com]

A global perspective of the "texting gap"

Naomi S. Baron, author of Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World, is Professor of Linguistics at American University in Washington, DC., putting our concern about the "texting gap" into a global perspective on OupBlog via Ypulse.

"Viewed from the other side of the Atlantic, text messaging by adolescents in the United States seems reminiscent of the early days of desktop publishing. Once we reveled in experiments with point size, font style, and color. The results were often graphic disasters, as we failed to heed the Delphic warning, "Nothing in Excess." Gradually word processing became a workaday tool, and our documents calmed down.

In Europe, text messaging (generally known as SMS) first appeared in 1993, giving young people a decade more experience with the medium than their American counterparts. What is still often a toy in America, played on with youthful abandon, has settled into a pedestrian appliance elsewhere, particularly as teen mature into young adults."

SMS language sparks off unusually spelt baby names trend!

The popular SMS and email phonetic spellings have not only corrupted the English language, but have also sparked a trend of unusually spelt baby names, according to Thaindian News.

"Most parents these days are drawing on the cool SMS and email spellings, by eschewing traditional spellings for versions such as Alex-Zander, Cam’ron, Emma-Lee, Ozkah, Thaillah and Ameleiyah.

Social analyst Mark McCrindle looked at Australian births in 2007 and discovered that the name Jayden was registered spelt in 12 ways, Aidan in nine ways, and Amelia and Tahlia in eight ways.

The name Lachlan had five other versions - Lochlyn, Lochlin, Lochlen, Lochlain and Lauchlan.

“The use of a ‘y’ instead of an ‘i’ has hit epidemic proportions, as has the use of ‘k’ over ‘c’ like in the names Jaykob and Lynkon, double letters like Siimon and Chriss and hyphens like Emma-Lee,” News.com.au quoted McCrindle, of private research agency McCrindle Research, as saying.

He added that the increasing trend could be attributed to the phonetic spelling in email and text messaging and to parents wanting their children to be prominent."

Textonyms: Sophisticated pig latin

According to Reuters, a more sophisticated version of pig latin is being developed by mobile phone-addicted kids based on the predictive text of their treasured handsets.

"Key words are replaced by the first alternative that comes up on a mobile phone using predictive text -- changing "cool" into "book", "awake" into "cycle", "beer" into adds", "pub" into "sub" and "barmaid" into "carnage".

Some of the most popular textonyms show intriguing links between the originally intended word and the one the predictive text throws up -- "eat" becomes "fat" and "kiss" becomes "lips", "home" is "good" and the vodka brand "Smirnoff" becomes "poison".

The replacement words -- technically paragrams, but commonly known as extonyms, adaptonyms or cellodromes -- are becoming part of regular teen banter.

And the older generation -- many of whom already struggle with simple text language -- are being thrown into yet deeper confusion."

Do text messages disappear or are they permanently stored somewhere?

Do text messages disappear — like oral conversations — or are they permanently logged somewhere for potential retrieval — like e-mail usually is? A good question raised by the Associated Press.

"For standard consumer text-messaging technology, the answer is largely that they disappear. According to Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Erica Sevilla, "Unless you have something stored on your phone or on a recipients' phone, it does not stay on our network for a long period."

AT&T Inc. keeps text messages for up to 72 hours until delivery is successful, spokesman Howard Riefs said. "If a message can't be delivered, it is removed from the system and can't be retrieved."

Ethiopians get texting in Amharic

A new range of mobile phones has just gone on sale in Ethiopia, with the onscreen menu in Amharic, and the ability to send SMS text messages in the Geez script - used for Amharic and other languages in the region. The BBC reports.

This is something of a breakthrough in a country where until recently text messaging was not allowed in any language.

Ethiopians had been able to send and receive messages in the past, but during the violent election protests in 2005 the service stopped working without explanation.

Now text messaging is back.

Smexting: Texting while smoking

From Wired Jargon Watch via MobHappy:

Smexting v. Texting while smoking, often outside a bar.

The phenomenon is being spurred by smoking bans, most recently in the UK.

The British mobile carrier Orange reported a surge in texting when the ban went into effect, but the company claims that people were smexting friends who might help them to quit. What are they smoking?

Parents Fuming Over Text Message Homework

Some parents in Grand Prairie, Texas, are fuming after a math teacher allegedly sent sixth-grade students home with a lesson on text messaging abbreviations that included such terms as “Nude in Front of the Computer,” among other questionable phrases. myFox reports.

Sixth graders at Jackson Middle School were assigned by a math teacher to decode twenty popular text messaging abbreviations.

Some of the other codes included POS: Parent Over Shoulder and KPC: Keeping Parents Clueless.

Students were also directed to a Web site that included such codes as GYPO: Get Your Pants Off and IWSN: I Want Sex Now”.

David Pogue's new online shorthand

Online shorthand like LOL or OMG came about because it's so hard to type full English words on a cellphone keypad, explains everyone's favorite David Pogue. But Pogue thinks kids have outgrown these acronyms.

So here, with his compliments, are a few proposals: an updated list of online acronyms. Terrific.

* GI -- Google it

* MOP -- Mac or PC?

* FCAO -- five conversations at once

* IIOYT -- is it on YouTube?

* DYFH -- did you Facebook him/her?

* BIOI -- buy it on iTunes

* TWD -- typing while driving

* SML -- send me the link

* RHB -- read his/her blog

And a personal favorite:

* MBLO -- much better-looking online

[via SwissMiss]

Iranian linguistic centre wants Farsi term for SMS

An Iranian linguistic centre has called for the use of a Farsi term for mobile-phone text-messaging, or SMS, earthTimes reports via SMSTextNews.

"The Farhangestan, the country's linguistic watchdog centre responsible for presenting genuine Persian vocabulary, has approved the Farsi term payamak (little message) for SMS.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had last year ordered the government and official organizations to avoid using Western terms and replace them with relevant Farsi translations given by the Farhangestan.

... Before and after the 1979 Islamic revolution, Western terms - mainly French and English - were gradually adopted by speakers of the language, causing deep concern among Tehran's rulers over the so- called "Western cultural invasion" which is also considered a political threat.

Western terms already Persianized include the equivalent in Farsi of "telephone which you carry with yourself" for mobile phone and "long-distance-writing" for fax. "

Texting 101 For Parents

The NY Times reports that Cingular Wireless is organizing a series of nationwide "texting bees" designed to give parents a crash course on the basics of texting. [via Information Week.]

"Cingular also hopes the classes will help it boost sales of handsets and use of text messaging among parents."

Multilingual Mobile Messengers

Justin Oberman on mopocket, has an interesting post on "the development of a new multilingual mobile messenger that will translate English text messages into multiple languages which can then be sent to any cell phone or mobile device in the world... no matter what character set it's programmed to use." [via Smart Mobs].

"So far, the software can display characters from 14 Indian languages as well as 57 different languages from around the world sans any type of common standards.

It's being developed by Geneva Software Technologies in Bangalore India."

"Texting" and "Text Message" in the Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary has officially listed texting (texting, n.) and text message (text message, v.) in their latest update on June 15th. Seems odd though that "texting" is classified as a noun and "text message" a verb.

And Google (Google, v.) has officially been listed as a verb.

[via Search Engine Journal via digg]

Pic-Talk

Geek.com reports on an Israeli company called Zlango that has developed a new mobile language--also called Zlango--that consists of over 200 icons.

In their own words:

Zlango has created a new, inspiring messaging platform which transforms SMS into an expressive, juicy, colorful icon-based experience.

Most important words, concepts or feelings can be expressed by an available icon. It’s text-less texting! If you still require text - it can be easily added anywhere in the message, just like typing an ordinary SMS.

200-year-old love poem uses text-speak

A startling sheet of ornate love poetry written by a Welsh emigrant more than 200 years ago has been uncovered at an American museum reports ICWales.

"The parchment, covered in fine calligraphic script and detailing Hugh Pugh's doomed love for Mary Fisher, hung on a family's wall for generations.

It offers a unique insight into the rites of courtship in the American colonies and tells a moving story about a young schoolteacher's love and the 20-year-old woman who ultimately spurned him.

And while academics today bemoan the damaging effect that email and text messaging is having on teenagers' communication skills, it seems that there were similar trends back in 1801. Instead of writing out some words in full, Pugh has replaced them with abbreviations like "CU" in a startling precursor to today's teen text-speak.

"It's quite unique," said Ingrid Bogel, the centre's executive director. "It's different from anything I've seen."

The Pleasures of the Text

The New York Times sums up the appeal of text messaging worldwide, with some interesting insight:

"The Chinese language is particularly well-suited to the telephone keypad, because in Mandarin the names of the numbers are also close to the sounds of certain words; to say "I love you," for example, all you have to do is press 520.

In China, moreover, many people believe that to leave voice mail is rude, and it's a loss of face to make a call to someone important and have it answered by an underling. Text messages preserve everyone's dignity by eliminating the human voice.

This may be the universal attraction of text-messaging, in fact: it's a kind of avoidance mechanism that preserves the feeling of communication - the immediacy - without, for the most part, the burden of actual intimacy or substance.

Local Languages on cell phones

This is interesting, from CIOL, on how Nokia and Samsung are developping cell phones which support several local languages in India .

"With local language computing becoming a reality, the trend of providing local/regional language support is becoming increasingly popular with mobile phones.

"According to Nokia India Pvt Ltd MD Sanjeev Sharma, “All entry and mid-range phones from Nokia support Hindi. Other phones support Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil and Bengali while the Nokia 6030 supports nine-language user interface. With this, we cover about 80 percent of the Indian population.�

He added, “Currently, phones supporting local languages are being sold in the States where that specific language is being spoken. The company is planning to market some phones, which support all the regional languages, all over India. For this, the company is currently studying the demand pattern.�

Samsung is also providing local language support on many of its phones. Samsung D500, besides supporting messaging in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Bengali and Punjabi, also supports menu in Gujarati and Kannada.

The Samsung N700 supports five different regional languages and features a multi-language dictionary to support easy and intuitive SMS."

Grrr! Watch Out for Orexiaorexia

The new "disease" about to sweep the nation is Orexiaorexia. Fun from Fox News.

"Our biggest Grrrs will come when some unoriginal news copywriter starts putting an "orexia" or "orexic" at the end of every addictive condition, much like the suffix "-gate" is added to every scandal.

The birth of the term "tanorexia - which describes people who can't get dark enough - and its skin-damaging effects are the least of our problems.

We news consumers will now be subjected to words like "colarexic" for kids who drink too much cola. "Shoporexic" will replace the equally unoriginal shopaholic and "pokerexia" will describe those who can't stop playing Texas hold'em.

"Textorexia" describes the constant text messaging that occurs on cell phones, two-way pagers and Blackberries.

"DIYorexics" are people who are addicted to "Extreme Makeover" and other home improvement shows.

"Videorexia" will refer to PlayStation 2 and Xbox addicts, as well as MTV junkies.

"Travelexia" describes people who take more than two vacations every year.

"Weborexics" are people who are constantly online."

McCartney abhors SMS abbreviations!

Verbatim

“I like to spell everything properly when I text, but I do like predictive text.

"It is the surrealist in me that likes it because I was sending someone a message saying, ‘Thank you from Paul and Heather' and it came out ‘Paul and heavier'. As she was eight months pregnant at the time, it came out rather accurately,” The Sun quoted him as saying."

[via New Kerala]

Prince Prince attacks 'voguish' GCSE text message studies

Prince Charles told a gathering of teachers they were performing "daily miracles" in the classroom but the "voguish preoccupation" with making subjects relevant - including plans to allow children to study text messaging as part of GCSE English Studies - were damaging the prospects of future generations, reports The Guardian.

"Why ... has it been suggested in some quarters that people be asked to discuss the use of texting and instant messaging and whether such developments require a significant change to the teaching of English?" he wondered".

Scholar and Futurist predicts the end of the written word

William Crossman, a futurist and an English instructor at Vista Community College in Berkeley, believes that reading and writing are doomed, reports Inside Bay Area.

"The respected scholar gives the written word until 2050 to become a curiosity of the past.

Crossman believes that talking computers, which we already have in a primitive form, will be storing and retrieving information for us rather than paper and text. We'll be talking to them and getting our information by asking questions rather than by checking our files or libraries.

Crossman, unlike others, does not wring his hands over this. He sees it as a positive.

When asked why we would give up what many consider to be culture's shining achievement — literacy and written language — Crossman says it's inevitable — text is merely one stage of our evolution, and it's on the way out.

He points to the phonograph, telephone, television, video, movies, and instant and text messaging lingo as proof of our culture's unconscious rebellion against text.

He cites statistics that show that IQ scores worldwide are getting higher as literacy rates are plummeting. Children especially just don't want to learn to read and write, and this is not just for the socioeconomic reasons people tend to ascribe to it, he contends."

British Airways Campaign Teaches London Slang

British Airways has launched a campaign with Web, wireless and outdoor components that aims to teach U.S. travelers some London slang, reports ClickZ Network.

"A series of out-of-home and online ads display common British words, such as "peckish" and "snog," along with a definition.

The ad copy on the outdoor placements give passersby to a word-specific URL where they can use the word in their own sentence and send it to a friend via e-mail or text message. In the online ads, the e-mail and SMS capabilities are built into the execution.

The online campaign will run through June with placements on some 30 sites, including NYTimes.com, Yahoo! Travel, Slate, NYMetro.com, Salon, Epicurious, Vanity Fair, Wine Spectator, and BBC America."

SMS greeted with delight by Linguistics Professor

Educationalists may rail against the increased use of 'txt' shorthand by children in their school work, and that is only proper, for there is a time and a place for everything. However, the advent of new language styles and forms engendered by the Internet, and related communication developments such as SMS messaging, should be greeted with delight, according to internationally renowned language expert, Professor David Crystal, Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor. [via Science Daily]

"Professor Crystal tells the Annual Conference of the AAAS that this is the greatest opportunity for the development of the English language since the advent of the printing press in the Middle Ages.

The variety of applications of new technology leads to new stylistic forms and increases the expressive range of a language, especially at the informal end of the spectrum."

The prophets of doom emerge every time a new technology influences language, of course - they gathered when printing was introduced, in the 15th century, as well as when the telephone was introduced in the 19th, and when broadcasting came along in the 20th; and they gathered again when it was noticed that Internet writing broke several of the rules of formal standard English - in such areas as punctuation, capitalization, and spelling," says Crystal."

Other positive articles on SMS language

-- IM and SMS, not the death of language

-- Teacher finds novel way to use texting

-- E-Mail and Texting - Not at all bad

-- Texting 'is no bar to literacy'

IM and SMS, not the death of language

Communicating using instant messenger, text messaging, even blogging are changing the way humans communicate, writes Wired.

"The technologies have opened up a whole new field of linguistic studies, and researchers say the impact will be as significant as the advent of the telegraph and telephone.

Traditional linguists fear the internet damages our ability to articulate properly, infusing language with LOLs, dorky emoticons and the gauche sharing personal information on blogs. But some researchers believe we have entered a new era of expression.

"Resources for the expression of informality in writing have hugely increased -- something not seen in English since the Middle Ages," said David Crystal, an author and linguistics professor at the University of Wales at Bangor.

During a seminar on language and the internet at the AAAS meeting Friday, researchers presented their findings on internet communication techniques. Read on in Wired

Oxford Dictionary goes SMS savvy

ATB,KIT,CUL8R,B4N! This simply means all the best, keep in touch, see you later and bye for now - All acronyms included in the latest version of the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, reports the India Express Bureau.

"It's editor, Sally Wehmeier says; "people like to know how to send out an email, whether it is OK to use informal language, whether it is acceptable to start with hello, etc."

The dictionary in fact explains that text messages, chat room messages and sometimes emails can be written using the smallest number of letters possible".

Text Messsging Chatter

Parents are having a tough time cracking the code kids use online and on their cell phones, Philadelphia television station WCAU reported via San Diegos News Leader, in an article on online safety.

Interesting, some of the acronyms used by children which were new to me:

POS -- parent over shoulder
CTN -- can't talk now"
TOS -- teacher over shoulder
SOS -- for sibling over shoulder
SAW -- siblings are watching.

There are hundreds of codes, and some are more shocking than others, such as:

ASL -- Age, Sex, Location
NIFOC -- Nude in front of the computer
TDTM -- Talk dirty to me

Text Messengers Slang Dictionary Available

Tegic has put together a "T9® Dictionary," a resource to help texters stay on top of the latest slang terms, according to LinuxElectrons.

Available as a free download at t9.com/t9dictionary, expert texters and those new to sending messages from their mobile phones and PDAs alike can stay in the know.

Texting and e-mails shape dictionary

About 1000 new words have entered our language since the last edition of the Collins English Dictionary came out two years ago, reports EDP24.com.

Many reflect our growing obsession with celebrities and a youth culture where cutting edge communication, via txt, e-mail and chatrooms has abbreviated the way we talk to our colleagues, relatives – or M8s.

"Jeremy Butterfield, editor-in-chief of Collins Dictionaries, said the mass media and celebrities were now two of the biggest influences on the evolving English language.

Some new words and terms:

-- ROTFL – text messaging/e-mail term, 'rolling on the floor laughing'.
--mother-out-law – mother of ex-husband or wife.

-- Tin, now an adjective as well as a type of metal or baked bean receptacle, apparently means 'true to its word' – ie, it does exactly what it says on the tin, like the TV advert for varnish.

-- 'You are the weakest link' is another example. When the programme was at its height, people were using that in all kinds of contexts.”

What do experts say about SMS used as a verb?

A short essay which raises a good question. Is it okay to use SMS as a verb as it really stands for "Short Message Service". Like in:

1. I'll SMS you later

2. I am SMSing my girlfriend

3. He SMSed me last night

"In the opinion of this journalist (for the Malaysia Star), it is acceptable to use ‘SMS' as a verb. This is not blind or foolish acceptance. It stems from our knowledge that a word can change its class (e.g. from noun to verb). Language is, after all, dynamic.  

Text Messaging Abbreviations

Your online dictionary for text-speak.

HTH (Hope this helps)!