Text speak, or txt spk for the young and mentally agile among you, has been in use since mobile phone text messaging became popular. Driven by speed and length concerns, many words now have shortened versions, and phrases have abbreviations. But this textese is now leaving mobile phones and entering everyday language.

Most people know a lot of the common text speak phrases such as l8 to mean late, lol to mean laugh out loud, or brb to mean be right back. They are used both in mobile phone text messages and in online chats, sometimes for speed and sometimes for sheer laziness.

But, according to a new study by the British Post Office, with help from lexicographer extraordinaire Jonathon Green, there’s a new breed taking hold of conversations, only this time they aren’t limited to the short-form chats on new technologies.

Green told The Daily Telegraph:

What we’re seeing is the influence of technology coupled with current events and, inevitably of the young, who in many cases drive language. It’s focused on this world of mobile phones – these abbreviations are perfectly suited to those little screens.

[Language] has long been dictated by technology. The difference is that the technology in 1918 was a small grubby postcard, while today it’s that little screen.

Gone are the days when simple abbreviations or replacing letters with numbers that sounded similar ruled the day. Now you’d need a degree in text speak to be able to understand some of the conversations taking place between youngsters, both via mobile phones and in the real world.

Examples given are:

404 – Clueless (Because 404 is the error message when a Web page cannot be displayed.)
Book – Cool (Because Book often comes up when people try to type Cool using predictive text.)
GOOD job – Get Out Of Debt Job
143 – I Love You (Because I has one letter, love has four, and you has three.)
459 – I Love You (Because four, five, and nine are the keys to press for I, L, and Y)

The problem is that text speak seems to be evolving at an incredible rate, and how do you keep track of what every new form means unless someone explains it to you at least once? It could be that the tech-savvy youth of tomorrow could communicate in another language from the rest of us, with English as we know it becoming about as useful in the modern age as a chocolate teapot.

I’ve seen this happen on too many occasions to doubt the claims that textese is entering everyday language. A friend of mine who can speak and write perfectly well when it suits her regularly turns on the text speak. And rather than speed up my day, it takes me double the time to read it. I suppose I should call her a 404 and be done with it.

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Entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 12:11 am under Cell phones, Opinion, Technology.

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