Do You Use Shortened Txt Msgs?

The Gopher

Just out of curiousity but there was a report on TV3 news about how teachers are concerned that students are starting to use text abbreviations in their writing etc.Personally I thought it was a load of crap but it got me thinking-despite the fact that the news constantly talks about the new language it has created who the fook uses it?
Personally I generally gave up using any shorthand about 2 days after I bought a phone when I realised that you can write what you want with predictive text in about 10% of the time.Now I only use abbreviations etc if I run out of space in a text and have to go editing it a little.
But in general even those of you who still refuse to use predictive text dont seem to send incomprehensiveable(sp?:D )codes like the news would have you think.It is in my experience its usually girls who use abbreviations but even at that it is fairly simple stuff like w.b(write back)and other stuff you can work out without buying a text dictionary.
So tell me,does anybody actually send WRWEGNG2MET or something hoping the recipient will know it means"Where are we going to meet?"
Just wondering;)

Miguel_Sanchez

Good God no.

I abhor shortened texts. They make people seem like illiterate idiots. I always spell out the words in my texts.

For some reason shortened texts always put me in mind of giggling 14 year olds. Pesky kids.


Bah Humbug.

El Marco

Oh god I loath short hand texting! For one I can't read the bloody things and usually spend 10 minutes trying to decrypt them and it makes the sender look like and flamming idiot. Personally I think people send short hand texts to me in the hope that I get distracted trying to figure them out and get knocked down while crossing the road.

oeNeo

Same.

Text speak is just retarded and often pretty hard to figure out. It takes me the same amount of time just to write it out properly that it would to think of shortened versions of words and type them out!

Down with text and l33t sp34k 4evr.

Littletinyman

I prsnly tink u r all gy IMO TBH

txt msg spk is d way frwrd, u dnt hv 2 use as mny chractrs nd ts quckr.

wb
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Gordon

I always try to format texts nicely, just recently I've started putting in the comma things ' for plural as it's easy to do with my predictive text. If I need to bunch up the large message I'll use tht knd f langwge smtms, it cn b v cnfsng tho, s.

(Two Ronnies sketch) A guy goes into a grocers:
L O, F U N E X?
S, V F X.

Lucifer

i use it all the time, its much quicker and saves space in a message. i dont use it to the extend you are saying though, you can understand it no problem.

Tellox

I despise shrthnd txting
it reminds me of when i first used the net and spk lk ths, but what really gets me going is when they use that shorthand bollocks on the net. I actually took goes at people a few times, telling them if they want the honour of speaking to me,then they are to stop talking like illiterate asses and gss*s

teh extra s is for spelling

Bard

I rarely used text messaging before I got the Nokia 5110. It has a full keyboard, which just makes it that much easier and faster, so now I text a bit more than I used to... - and when I *do* text, I use full words and proper sentences, spelling and diction. Using this shorthand would be no faster for me, and it just looks stupid. Don't really like getting texts like that, but couldn't care less really.

I still try to avoid texting as a conversation is usually less expensive (and more HUMAN) over a phone call. Generally, if you *do* get a text from me, it means I'm either busy (unlikely!) or I couldn't be arsed phoning you (more likely).

Hobart

What ye all forget is that modern day 'txting' was invented by young ppl. They invented the language. They also made the 'txt revolution' what it is 2day. Also because "most" txt msgs are restricted to 160 chars the use of abbreviations are sometimes essential.

As an aside did you know that the first text message ever sent was sent via an Irish software system. And also up until recently 6 out of 10 txt messages were sent via Irish written SMS software?

woosaysdan

i like to use shorthand txting but it might be stuff like 2nite or b4 imo its just faster!!! but in my mock exams a few yrs ago i did an essay in shorthand by mistake OOPS!!!

kaimera

in my mock exams a few yrs ago i did an essay in shorthand by mistake OOPS!!

lol! hehehe n1

byte

I prefer to use full words. I always use predictive text which is extremely handy and find that if i do try the abbreviated text, i'm a lot slower! :rolleyes:

oneweb

Originally posted by Bard
I rarely used text messaging before I got the Nokia 5110. It has a full keyboard, which just makes it that much easier and faster

...and all this time I've been using the number keys :rolleyes: so where did they hide the keyboard in the 5110? Methinks youthinks of a different model with a similar number...

Proper spelling 4evr!

(On the rare occassion that I txt <it's usually cheaper to call for half a minute than txt off-peak>, I include the right spelling, grammer etc. The odd shorthand word makes its way when it's really urgent. I hate getting messages which are full of short codes, and don't think much of the intelligence of those who send them.

Makaveli

I'll only use shorthand if I run out of space (not very often), and even then it's only to make "you" - "u". I hate shorthand, it takes ages for me to read it and the only people that text me in shorthand are girls. Predictive text is so much faster. I write text messages as if I was actually writing so there's full stops and commas and apostraphes.

monument

I used to try to use not use text (some think like Bard said or) as the advert used to say “its good to talk”.

When I text (or should I say txt) I try to use full words, but when ever I’m short of time I use shortened text like “r u going out 2 night” or “where the f r u?” noting like “jhf km le^&*_($&*£_(+_£gu”

TenLeftFingers

My sister is a lectureres Behavioural science, HRM and psychology. You wouldn't believe the storys.

Even in 1st and 2nd year of college, students do their exam papers in text. I know for a fact that one student used the number 4 instead of the word 'four' throughout his/her paper.

Can't remember how they did but jeeez.

yellum

I don't use txt speak, its v annoying. I get 500 txts a week and some of it is txt speak and its so annoying. I do not work in Bletchley park ffs

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

i never shorten words in texts unless i am desperate for space, and even then I would rather delete a few space characters and join some words together than have "r, u, blah blah" whatever else in a message. it just irritates the **** out of me

mooman_00

i rarely use shorthand cuz as youve said its fukkin annoying both to write and to read, but anyone who get txts off me will know that getting a txt off of me can be impossible to understand cuz i dont use capitals, fullstops, commas or any other form of punctation. Also my conversations tend to drift from one conversation to another with no warning making it impossible for the person im txting to understand what im on about... but back to shorthand...no

Typedef

Ha!

No way, Meteor sometimes sends me this wierd spam like this "did u know ur phone does blah"... hmm... if Meteor can't go to the bother/expense of using 'real' words, then I can't go to the bother/expense of reading their spam.

quid pro quo.

eth0_

I *HATE* abbreviated texts! I would use "U" and "UR" but that's really the extent of it, we have predictive text now, no need for silly abbreviation.

My Dad uses abbreviated text, and he's in his 60's, i'd love to know who taught him it heheh.

Saruman

VERY RARELY!! In fact almost never. I usually use full stops and commas and capitals etc.. at most i might change "and" to "&" but since it takes more keystrokes to do that it only makes sense to save space on the text so you can write more.

nosmo

I also hate text abbreviations. I can go without excessive punctuation in a message but playing "Hunt the vowel" when I get a particularly obfuscated message enrages me.

b3t4

Rite Im sick off all this if you write in shorthand your not intelligent lark.
I use shorthand, I think it bares no reflection on my intelligence (although this
post mite lol ).
I have never been good at english, never been good at spelling and sorry if I dont
read a dictionary before I go to sleep at night. On the other hand I am damn good
at other things.

Why on earth do so many people have to judge other people????

:mad:
A.

BigEejit

I think that if you did a poll that asked --> do you use shorthand in your text messages? you would find that young people use it most of the time and older generation people rarely use it .. just so long as the young people remember this when they text older people there is no problem!
I do however take offence to 1337 idiots that remove every vowel from their messages to make them look cool

mooman_00

Originally posted by b3t4
Rite Im sick off all this if you write in shorthand your not intelligent lark.
I use shorthand, I think it bares no reflection on my intelligence (although this
post mite lol ).
I have never been good at english, never been good at spelling and sorry if I dont
read a dictionary before I go to sleep at night. On the other hand I am damn good
at other things.

Why on earth do so many people have to judge other people????

:mad:
A.

cé?

i cant spell, i dont read a dictionary by night and im far from intelligent, bit slow off the mark and all that, this being why i haTE abbreivations i just cant for the life of me figure them out, they make no sense to me and i usually dont reply to them or i reply with random non senseical shiit cuz they make me feel stupid (crying profusely at desk at work), they are not fair on us stupid people

Bard

Originally posted by oneweb
...and all this time I've been using the number keys :rolleyes: so where did they hide the keyboard in the 5110? Methinks youthinks of a different model with a similar number...

Whoops!

Clearly I meant the 5510





(smartarse )

leeroybrown

I hate all those shortened text abbreviations. The only ones I'll use in a Text Message are IRC/Board ones I normally use. Otherwise it's proper gramar and punctuation.

GoneShootin

i almost always use "shortnd txt msgs". the only time i wont use them is when texting my parents or perhaps someone im working on a project for.

everyone else gets have the word length but twice the content

Dr_Teeth

I don't use SMS very often, as I'm usually near a computer and can send off an email which is easier and less limiting. When I do send an SMS I use predictive text and write correct english, perhaps embellishing the message with the odd smiley. This 'txt' abbreviation stuff utterly bites, it's hard not to think less of someone who sends you gibberish.

I don't believe that genuine abbreviations like 'otoh', 'rofl', 'iirc', 'afaik', 'ymmw' etc are necessarily bad as the intention in using them is not to corrupt the language but simply save space. The intentional corruption of what are short, single words is what pisses me off about 'txt' so much.

In 'net speak I honestly think that some examples like 'l33t', '0wned' etc are new words which now have their own specific meaning and context. The difference between these and 'txt' is that in 'txt' there is no new meaning, just corruption of words to save effort.

So, 'net speak is language moving forward in a way, creating new meanings to fit with the new contexts of the online world. In txt speak language is moving backwards as there is no new context or meaning, yet there is the corruption of words.

Teeth.

mada999

i h8 txting ppl

ballooba

Speaking as someone whose business is texting, we often need to shorten our texts so that we give the maximum info possible to the user. If we have to send two messages then we double our costs.

The only way of ensuring that we do this is by shortening our texts. But only when necessary.

Tusky

i only shorten words when i dont have space left in the msg...for instance if i HAD to id take the "E" out of "THEN" to make "THN" but only if i realy had to...i hate when ppl send me mumbo jumbo

Space Coyote

I do it the odd time esp if my thumbs about to fall off...
What bugs me more is when people are using predictive text and they don't fix words that get typed arseways. man that rattles my bag.

Texting is the best invention ever, now we never have to talk to anyone !

Did ye hear about the football manager that got sacked a cúpla weeks ago...the chairman texted "you're sacked" to him !
Class.

Spunog UIE

r e l a x, oh use the full proper word oh my god etc'

why is it so ****in annoying? if a person understands what your saying why should you have to write it all out, its just a waste of time and doesn't achieve anything, does not... hmmmm,

its definitly a thing for saving space for most, rather than for writing it quicker.


if you don't understand it then why don't ya just say it to the person txting you or figure it out. oh noooooo not another abbreviated text, what has the world come to. blah, bling bling.

phaxx

Never. If I'm short on space I'll either rephrase what I wrote or remove a few spaces, while trying to make sure it's still quickly readable.

My mother writes like a 12 year old, and I give her grief about it whenever I can.

At my school in the library, there are some posters done by the current batch of first years on the topic of promoting reading.
Some of these were done in MS Word, and there are a few that make me cringe whenever I see them.

I think the worst offender is a clipart book image, with some tacky wordart around it that says, "A BOOK A WEEK WILL HELP U SPEAK"

You have a full size keyboard, use it you lazy little wankers!

seamus

In work we have to use text shorthand all the time, but it's the proper 'official' shorthand, as opposed to stuff that people make up on the spur of the moment. What's the point in trying to find a quicker way to write a word when the poor bastard recipient takes 4 times as long to decipher it?

I used to use it on me old phone, but with predictive text now, it's faster to use normal speak. Most of my texts look like excerpts from IRC now (I have in my predictive dictionary )

It also makes drunken texts much harder to decipher. at least with normal speak, you can make out the words even if they're spelled wrong. But if your drunk mate is spelling abbreviations like 'ur' and 'de' wrong, it fscks it all up

ballooba

Ye Olde languages evolve.... Deal with it.

Space Coyote

a wise man once said:

Me fail English? That's unpossible!

Sarky

Shorthand text messages are the tool of the devil. Put some god damn effort into communicating with others for crying out loud!

Language evolves, I have no problem with that. This post would have been picked apart by any intellectual 100 years ago.

Text message shorthand is not evolution of a language. There is no school or college that will accept this, and believe you me you most certainly get penalised for using it.

It encourages bad grammar, bad spelling, and it really does look very stupid indeed.

To sum it up, if you can't be bothered communicating in a sensible, coherent way, then you probably have no business trying to communicate with people in the first place.

Harsh? Probably, but this really annoys me and should have been nipped in the bud before it got so bad. Oh, for the day when text messages will be routed through a spell checker that fines people for such "Deviations"...

ballooba

Originally posted by Sarky
There is no school or college that will accept this, and believe you me you most certainly get penalised for using it.

I wonder would you have been penalised for writing OK instead of Okay 60 years ago.

Mercury_Tilt

This post has been deleted.

TenLeftFingers

This post would have been picked apart by any intellectual 100 years ago.

I tnk u nd 2 tk a chll pll m8. I txt my gf on a reg basis n its mch mre efficient 2 use s.hand. She understands me, n I her.
Who cares if sum1 else doesn't like it?

Victor

No, I use T9 almost always. Teh only time I would shorten words would be when my message barely exceeds the limit and isn't wort another message to finish.

Sarky

Originally posted by merlin_bar
I tnk u nd 2 tk a chll pll m8. I txt my gf on a reg basis n its mch mre efficient 2 use s.hand. She understands me, n I her.
Who cares if sum1 else doesn't like it?

Far too much use of vowels and whole words there young man, must try harder-you're a txt noob!

I have no problem with people talking to eachother however they want. But there are now people who will write essays, business proposals, and quite possibly laws in this form. It's not on!

ballooba

laws in txt. that would be funny.

Sarky

Oh, and one more thing- When, in the name of all that's good and holy, did the word "text" become a verb?

civilisation is coming to an end faster than I could have imagined possible...:rolleyes:

Spunog UIE

get a life ffs. ha ha, ah gotta stop reading this.

oh it does does it...

Swifty

I have maaad texting skillz so I can ignore the dictionary and type a message in perfect english

The dictionary limits you in ways. It doesnt recognise some words and then you have to go through the whole pain in the ass process off inputting the word into the thing so it'll recognise the word 'c0cksmoker' the next time you want to use it. Pfffah.

GoneShootin

on the topic of SMS end English, theres a load of converters out there, just a google away