Hot on the heels of lexicographer Erin McKean’s advice that if it feels wordish, use it, here comes some more legitimation for linguistic innovation. The well known author and linguist, David Crystal, has published a new book on sms-speak - Txtng: The Gr8 Db8.
In a fascinating piece in The Guardian, Crystal rebuts claims that texting is some sort of linguistic vandalism. Abbreviations and rebuses and other linguistic forms have a history as old as the written language, he argues. What’s distinctive about texting is the combination of linguistic features:
Some of its juxtapositions create forms which have little precedent, apart from in puzzles. All conceivable types of feature can be juxtaposed - sequences of shortened and full words (hldmecls “hold me close”), logograms and shortened words (2bctnd “to be continued”), logograms and nonstandard spellings (cu2nite) and so on. There are no less than four processes combined in iowan2bwu “I only want to be with you” - full word + an initialism + a shortened word + two logograms + an initialism + a logogram. And some messages contain unusual processes: in iohis4u “I only have eyes for you”, we see the addition of a plural ending to a logogram. One characteristic runs through all these examples: the letters, symbols and words are run together, without spaces. This is certainly unusual in the history of special writing systems. But few texts string together long sequences of puzzling graphic units.
Crystal also points out that only a minority of text messages are actually written in text speak. But most of all, in a similar spirit to McKean, he finds the linguistic challenges of text message composition, well, fun:
Children quickly learn that one of the most enjoyable things you can do with language is to play with its sounds, words, grammar - and spelling.The drive to be playful is there when we text, and it is hugely powerful. Within two or three years of the arrival of texting, it developed a ludic dimension. In short, it’s fun.
And it isn’t going to destroy the kiddies’ English. Quite the contrary:
An extraordinary number of doom-laden prophecies have been made about the supposed linguistic evils unleashed by texting. Sadly, its creative potential has been virtually ignored. But five years of research has at last begun to dispel the myths. The most important finding is that texting does not erode children’s ability to read and write. On the contrary, literacy improves. The latest studies (from a team at Coventry University) have found strong positive links between the use of text language and the skills underlying success in standard English in pre-teenage children. The more abbreviations in their messages, the higher they scored on tests of reading and vocabulary. The children who were better at spelling and writing used the most textisms. And the younger they received their first phone, the higher their scores.
Children could not be good at texting if they had not already developed considerable literacy awareness. Before you can write and play with abbreviated forms, you need to have a sense of how the sounds of your language relate to the letters. You need to know that there are such things as alternative spellings. If you are aware that your texting behaviour is different, you must have already intuited that there is such a thing as a standard. If you are using such abbreviations as lol and brb (”be right back”), you must have developed a sensitivity to the communicative needs of your textees.
Image borrowed from David Ing.
Awesome thing I only found out recently:
David Crystal has a blog!
[Link]
Thanks Peter!
Exactly. It’s all wordplay, and those who are best at playing with words tend to have a higher, not a lower, understanding of context in communication generally i.e. they simply not going to pepper a job application or a letter to a customer with l33t speak (as we used to call it on oldsk00l internet before SMS texting was ever invented).
There’s another process, beyond initialising, logogramming, and shortening, that I’ve noticed trying to decode messages from my young one. She says it doesn’t matter when they use the wrong letter, the reader knows what key was used to punch it in, and therefore what the right letter probably was e.g. pmw = soz = sorry.
Mind you, she may very well be just winding me up, anyone else noticed a “surely using the right phone key is enough” phenomenon?
I’m thinking only those whose phone’s have full qwerty keyboards will have any idea of olde boomer english spelling.
Maybe google will come to the rescue and provide a babelfish service where the results of the txt rules can be translated from “pmw” to “sorry”.
This isn’t a bad thing. I reckon texting is a form of evolution of the language.
After all, English is not static, but changes over time with usage. If this were not the case, we’d all be chatting in the Middle English of Jeff Chaucer right now. And think what a bugger that would be.
New words and constructs sometimes find wider acceptance and pretty soon, they’re in general usage. Prior to the beat generation, for example, “cool” related only to temperature. Prior to the present texting generation “LOL” meant, well, nothing. Perhaps it still does (LOL).
Texters are shortening forms, running words and concepts together to form a sort of digitalised short-hand. It might be a temporary flash in the pan, but it might also lead to new words and forms being incorporated into the language.
Some may call it lazy, but that’s how language develops.
Yes. It’s closey related to the “But you understood what I meant and that’s all that matters” phenomenon.
And we h8s it, Precious. We h8s it with the in10sity of 1000 suns.
I can’t see too much actually new to get excited about in txtng.
Yours ect
SWALK - HOLLAND
I find texting annoying and slow, a bit like skiing when you first get started. I much prefer to talk to somebody.
Yes, if only we could develop some kind of a phone system with more interpretive messaging, so it was almost like talking.
People seem to get very hot under the collar about text-language, and try to justify their feelings with rational arguments about grammar and spelling.
I don’t. I hate txt speak because it’s just bloody annoying.
The best revenge is living gramatically.
I don’t like it because the only thing I can read easily after decades of habit is properly written English, but I am deeply enamoured of texting as a form of communication. As with email, it combines instantaneousness with courtesy. You can let people know you’re thinking of them without forcing them to talk to you, when they may be very busy or depressed or asleep or concentrating on work or whatever.
I was interested in the findings that a lot of texters write in standard English in texts. I tend to, for arcane reasons having to with a friend of mine’s sometime love interest making assumptions about prospective dates based on text speak.
Better safe than sorry!
Evan @ 5 - lol was around a lot earlier than texts were. It’s more a product of usenet and chat room speak historically!
Mark and PC - I agree one million percent.
Actually I’m prone to oddball shortenings and portmanteaux and plural-play, and was prior to any text or LOLspeak exposure. It kinda runs in the family. But if anyone else does it, particularly someone younger than me, and particularly particularly if it’s ‘cool’, I don’t like it. By cool I mean known by most people, as opposed to requiring deciphering by everyone but my closest friends.
I can see, but have no interest in discussing, the many logical problems with my position.
TO: LPHQ
FROM: RADM DAGAMA
SUBJ: TEXTING
STATUS: UNCLASSIFIED
—
TEXTING IS NOT NEW AS CLAIMED STOP
ITS ENGLISH MEDIATED TECHNOLOGYWISE STOP
SMS RETAINS SUPERIOR MARKET VALUE STOP
CHARACTER LIMITS BEAT WORDPRICE STOP
HEY KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN STOP
—
Heh!
That’s the way to stoush, FDB!
Heh is right. I wonder how long it would take* to get that tattooed on my forehead.
Whenever I’m tempted to textspeak, I think of something I once read about it: ‘If people can’t be bothered to write out what they want to say, I don’t see how they can expect me to be bothered reading it.’
And predictive text is even worse.
*and how much it would hurt, ow