User login
I don't know whether it is my aversion to MSN, or that I am just old before my time, but text speech really annoys me. Text speech has ground from the use of abbreviations, into using various letters and number combinations to represent complete inane and unrelated words or sentences. People started this to prevent using another text to send just the one or two characters that were needed for the complete message, but it has since turned into an almost fluid language for some people. They no longer laugh but they LOL, that person isn't annoying he is a PITA and it's no longer see you later it's TLK2UL8R.
Abbreviations have been around a long time and as a programmer I come across them often, these tend to be long hard to understand specific words or names that are stated once in full and then referenced as an acronym in all further discussion. That is fine, and understandable. What I cannot get my head around is the use of what is essentially mashing the keypad/keyboard with your fist and saying that it means something. It has gotten ridiculous, and it is mostly the younger generation that has adopted this fashion. However, older generations are attempting to use this phenomenal puerility to "connect" with younger generations and even teach them! One example of this is an article I found on the Guardian website, which talks about examiners allowing the use of text speech within answers to questions. Imagine that, just for a second, questions about Shakespeare and some of the classic books I read when I was younger like Lord of the Flies and Of Mice and Men, being answered in pseudo English.
Below is a paragraph from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet translated into text speak:
Bt w8, wuz dat lyt n d wndw ovr der? 
Itz d east, n Juliet S d sun.
Rise ^, btifl sun, n kil d jLs m%n . d m%n
S alrdy sick n pale W grief coz u,
Juliet, her maid, r mor btifl thN she.
Which is a translation of:
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.
I don't know where this texting craze will lead and whether it will really make people stupider, although that is what research seems to be suggesting. I know that I will continue to try and use correct grammar and spelling whatever I am typing.
P.S. JFGI means just fucking google it.