h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've just taken a look ahead to next week's English work and an impossible, horrific thing has happened... I have to do work on SMS. I have to write messages in it, try to translate messages from it and some nonsense about being able to teach others about it...!!! BAAAAH!! Dani and SMS-like things mix just about as well as water and oil. BAAAAAAAH!!!

I've done a lot of work on that. I'll help you if you like

I'm curious - how can you work on SMS ? What is it about, the so called txtspeach?

My English Language course has a lot of elements of language development, especially new languages and slangs, dialects, pidgin languages and so on. SMS txtspk is one of the newest and fastest evolving 'languages' in the world, really

Yes, probably, but I had never guessed that you could actually work about it

Oh, yeah. How new words are coined; how the technological advances in mobile telecommunications have contributed to linguistic development; how the actual language is used, such as when it's ok to drop vowels and consonants; the demographics of the people who use txtspk; comparisons to other dialects and langauges; the implications! There's a fantastic story about a Scottish girl who sat down in an exam, opened the paper and proceeded to write her entire essay in txtspk. I'll have to find my notes later.

It's funny, I have no idea about German txtspk, I only know the English one. I don't like to see too much of it elsewhere, though, I think it's ok in a SMS, because the amount of letters/SMS is limited, but I'm not very fond of seeing it here

It annoys me even in SMS A lot of the time it's just not necessary. And there's not really an excuse for seeing it on the Internet. I can type a damn sight faster than a lot of people I know, and I almost *always* write in full sentences with correct grammar. So it's not just about "saving time".

It's not saving time, my T9 doesn't know the abbreviations anyway, but it saves space in a mobile message. We've got enough space here, though,and for me,it's far easier to understand correct English than what I sometimes read on here.

Quite - I write text messages in full anyway *because* I use T9.

Still, from my perspective the SMS section of my course was quite interesting, but only because I love language study. I suspect Dani won't enjoy it quite so much...

*tries to remember the shameful dark ages from long long ago when she too said things like "u" and "r" and doesn't recall how it is done properly...*

Another thing that annoys me about text messages is when people use predictive text and don't actually make it say the word they want. Let me give you an example from a text message my sister sent me yesterday. "I need sound for the hand tell of when i call you" I had no idea what that meant! Then she called me and she explained she wanted to know how to turn on the sound for a game she was playing. *groans* Damn that girl!

Joe, thanks for the help offer. I shall prod you when I need it, although the chances are I shall spend the time complaining about how horrible it is to have to do things and the... BAAAAAAH!

Yeah, happens often when using T9 - I sometimes forget to check, so it says : I wolfe up, instead of woke