When communication by mobile phone started you had a weird keypad which involved pressing keys once, twice or thrice for each letter. So I suppose it was hardly surprising that people took shortcuts. Oddly, on Twitter with its limit on characters most people seem able to be economical with. their language rather than resort to the likes of hi hun ur my best m8 c u 4 for cofy l8ter round urs? LOL Or whatever. Is our language really worth so little? And is there any need for this instead of using real words?
That fuh fuh suh is really funny, farnorth. I make up 'swear' words when necessary. They don't mean anything, they're just for releasing tension when something goes wrong—nonsense words, I suppose. I've no idea why vocalising a string of monosyllabic nonsense is helpful when one's frustrated with something, but it seems to be.
Well I hate seeing it here on Gransnet. How people communicate with their own friends on Facebook or by mobile is their own business but for me just the sight of “ur” or “u” in a post absolutely sets my teeth on edge.
Smartphones with their predictive text don't recognise text speak or acronyms. It takes you so long to correct the corrections made by predictive text, it means it's far easier to use the full spelling.
Textspeak, when done properly, isn't inaccurate, just different and, like shorthand, there's a reason for it. At least there was when it was invented. One can be just as grammatically correct using texttype as one can when using words spelled out longhand.
I'm sorry but I can't see that using text speak or abbreviations to be quick, or for a bit of fun are ruining the language. As long as people know how to write properly and grammatically when appropriate it's not a problem. It's all part of life's rich pattern.
It's all a mystery to me. I need everything to say what it means and mean what it says. Easily confused am I. I don't use abbreviations and I have to use punctuation, capital letters and paragraphs. As for predictive text - no words
I always use correct English with punctuation as I know how I feel and what I think when I receive anything else. I do, however, use abbreviations when others are using them.
Whatever they might say, people judge when they see solecisms and mistakes. In this day of ‘everything goes’ accurate English is the last social determinant, I ha e observed.
It comes under Thomas Hardy’s dictum of ‘what everyone knows but no one will say.’
I still choose to use the old style phone, with all the key pressing involved, but my texts consist of complete words, and are fully punctuated. I just like this size and shape of phone as I have small hands. I don't use predictive text, but I'm pretty fast.
Yes I have to get my head round DH, MIL etc but think it's a good brain test! What bugs ME is people using .... between sentences insted of a full stop - why?! So so tedious a read.