I love to send people text messages. I’m a bit of a text messaging junkie, which is why I now have unlimited text messaging with my cell phone. Apparently I was going over my limit every month, as was evidenced by the loud sighs of exasperation coming from Rick’s study when the cell phone bill arrived. Oops. But for someone who doesn’t talk much, all these new ways of communicating are like really fun amusement park rides. (So wait – with this email thing, I can talk all I want without ever actually having to talk? I gotta get in line for that!) Once you’ve ridden the roller coaster, you run right back to the end of the line so you can ride it again. It’s just so much fun…
But text messaging does present a problem – most phones seem to allow a maximum of 160 characters per message, including spaces. Which doesn’t give you much room to convey your thoughts. You couldn’t have a truly heated text message argument, for instance. Because by the time you got around to writing out “you are SUCH a--” you’d be at the end of your character limit. And would you really want to waste one of your messages to complete the thought? I guess that’s where unlimited messaging comes in handy…
The other problem with text messages is the struggle to convey proper tone within such a tiny, confined space. If you’re simply writing “how are you?” or “let’s meet for lunch” the intentions are pretty clear. But what about happiness, or sadness, or sarcasm, or annoyance, or confusion, or any of the other myriad of emotions or moods or inflections someone might want to make understood in a message? With only 160 characters, it’s not always easy to be clear. (And yes, Faisal, if you’re reading this – this entire post was inspired by our strange text message conversation about Chacon yesterday. :))
Text messages have also given way to one of my biggest pet peeves – the use of “text message speak” in everyday writing. I can completely understand typing “how r u?” in a text message, since not only can finding the proper key for the proper letter be a bit of a chore at times, but also, again – only 160 characters. So you leave out the “yo” in “you.” You spell “love” and “know” and “eye” phonetically. You use numbers in place of letters, like “2sday” and “gr8.” And when it’s a text message, I get it. No problem. Do whatever you have to do to stay within that cramped little phone prison. But I absolutely HATE (or should I say h8?) to see someone write that way in a regular email – “How r u 2day? Gr8!!” Does it honestly take up too much precious time to type out y-o-u? A-r-e? It’s a little disconcerting to see this trend. Will we one day end up with a country full of people who have no idea how to form a complete sentence? And will any of them know how to find India on a map? (Can u see it? Nope. Can u? Nope. U r so stoopid. No, U r.)
Perhaps the proliferation of email and cell phones is contributing to a sort of “dumbing down” effect on our population. I’d say we should just get rid of them all, but we can’t very well go around destroying all the rides at Six Flags now, can we? What fun would that be? Anyway, I suppose that’s enough rambling for today…
C u ppl l8r.
2 comments:
X-cellent! Actually, I'm in the process of inventing a new language that is halfway beween txt msg and Eng. (just kidding!).
What you're really addressing here is information theory, and how much of a communication's meaning is "carried" by each word or letter.
[That last sentence takes on completely different meaning if the word 'much' is replaced with "a great deal"; or 'how much' is replaced with "what measure". How do you know in which context I meant the word 'much' to be taken? Ergo: inaccurate communication, or at least the possibility of same].
If the purpose of your communication is to communicate clearly, the shorter the better. if it's to show the subtle nuances you can tease out of English, as an artist would coax shades of emotion from mere tubes of colored chemical, then by all means go the English route!!
It doesn't have to be an either-or choice, does it?
Love your sense of humour!!
No, it certainly doesn't have to be an either-or choice. Good thing, because otherwise my text messages would likely take on linguistic lives of their own -- kind of like AT&T-sponsored ivy...
I suppose my aversion to "txt msg" spelling in other forms of communication stems from my years of proofreading work. When I see such obvious misspellings, I am forced to stifle the urge to grab the nearest red pen and start making corrections. :)
Thanks for the comments!
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