mh-z web-log

Observations. When I write text messages on my cell phone (perhaps more frequently than some) it’s much, much easier for me to use full words than to use those abbreviations like "me 2" and "how r u" and "2b or not 2b wher4 r u juli8". That’s because most of the time I can type a word using "T9 mode" on my phone (figure-out-ive text input) as it’s really spelled and it’ll come out correctly. I don’t have to think about how word should b spelled in txt-speak, and more importantly, I don’t have to keep switching modes so I can type words that aren’t in the figure-out-ive text dictionary. If I’m in the direct input mode where I can type arbitrarily-spelled words, on rough average I’m using two keypresses to enter each letter (since there are three letters on each key) as opposed to one keypress per letter in T9 (plus a bit extra to hit the "next matching word" button for the number sequences that correspond to an initially wrong word). (Or for direct input again, even more than two keypresses on average, because to get to the numeral it takes FOUR keypresses. A->B->C->2.) So, unless txt-speak lets me write 2x shorter msgs, it takes extra effort to merely key in the same idea (more keypresses), and that’s disregarding the time it takes to figure out cr8v word spellings.

The one thing txt-speak might help with is in compressing a message down so that more can be said within the 160 character limit. But, I find that even with fully written words and long sentences, the limit has never been a problem. Editing the grammar of the message eliminates words easily if your sentence is too long to fit, and anyway, that’s a very long and convoluted sentence we’re talking about, and if you have something that long to say to someone you ought to "pick up the phone" (which is clearly an idiom, since you’d already be holding the phone in your hand, having picked it up minutes ago to try and enter this monster text message before realizing that you really should just call) and just call.

The places I generally see cr8v txt message spellings emphasized are in ads. (In fact, I think Verizon Wireless started using "txt" in the first place.) This makes me wonder whether people in the real world use such radically abbreviated spelling or if it’s cell phone companies trying to pick the one thing that makes text messaging different from instant messaging on the computer (namely, that it’s a royal pain to enter letters) to try and market it as something different and therefore cool/hip/romantic. (Oh how I hate the word "hip", though. It makes me think of glossy magazine editors (yes, the editors themselves are glossy) and stuffed olives and ersatz cocktail parties and people who try desperately hard to qualify their hip-ness or hiptitude and sentences which repeatedly use "and" instead of commas. "Hip" is a word people who aren’t part of the thing use to talk about something that would never use the word to talk about itself; or else, that thing is fake. Know what I mean?)

The point of all that was, that advertising companies are trying to make text messaging into something hip (in their abstract minds, because remember, hipness only exists in a thing to people outside of the thing) by skewing its fundamental character. It’s not; it’s just a convenient way to communicate sometimes when a call isn’t necessary or will use up your allotted minutes. Also, entering letters is not as much a royal pain as you might think. Although I’m a somewhat seasoned (though not yet grilled to perfection) texter, and I have skills in the art of touch-typing the letters on a phone keypad, this skill took maybe 20 messages to develop in the first place.

Speaking of predictive text input, it’s interesting to notice how certain sequences of numbers correspond to related words. For example, 5477 produces both "kiss" and "lips", and, oh, I forgot the others noticed, but that was one of the best ones.

> 2b or not 2b wher4 r u juli8

> o ro i wan2 5477 ur sw8 5477

Yes, so romantic…