One will be amused. The other will be disgusted.

More precisely: one will be amused, the other will have no idea what it says.;)

texting is not going to go away in the foreseeable future

No, but with the rise of handheld devices that have full keyboards, there is a chance that shortcuts will become less common. (Then again, with the increase in prices charged for messaging, the incentive to keep things short remains.)

EH, at 7:30 am EDT on October 15, 2008

Interesting project for the historian, IMHO.

I think it would be interesting for historians of the 19th century to chime in on this, since I can only imagine the abbreviations developed on-the-fly in another txt-lim. medium, i.e. telegraphy. Early senders of telegrams were under the same constraints vis a vis space and $$$. I would love to see what *their* txt’g looked like in the 19th cn, compared alongside today. Though the words being abbreviated might be different, the style and intent might bring one a sense of deja vu.

JJR, Librarian I at Texas Woman’s University, at 9:20 am EDT on October 15, 2008

I am a writer and editor in the autumn of my career, and I find text and Internet abbreviations exciting and fun. Will formal English and txt-ese ever merge in any concrete way? I’m not sure — they may remain medium-specific — but if they do, I won’t throw my hands up in disgust. Language is a living organism, and I enjoy seeing how it evolves over time. Each generation of youth writes its own glossary of new phrases and expressions. Some of these may annoy or repel us, but the useful words and spellings (useful for conciseness, color, whatever) will endure — and eventually appear in the OED. :-)

Elizabeth, at 3:55 pm EDT on October 15, 2008

I Rlaley Htae Tihs Sftuf ... But

As mcuh as I dslkie tihs from of cmmuoctnomiain unisg the wtitren wrod, I blvieee onejcbtig to it is a wtsae of tmie. Wehn the proupse of the sntcenee is mrleey to tnafsrer iforimonatn, the mroe crvteaie aognmst us wlil csat out the unecraesnsy and go wtih waht is msot cnvoneenit.

http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/~mattd/Cmabrigde/

http://www.languagehat.com/archives/000840.php

Frizbane Manley, at 9:05 pm EDT on October 15, 2008

I Can’t Argue With l33t dud3 ...

Six things ...

First, I admit that if you have to explain a little “humor,” it must not have been very funny to begin with.

Second, “making a fool of myself” is an occupational – not to mention a philosophical – hazard. It happens to me all the time.

Third, I certainly cannot dispute l33t dud3’s survey results that “everyone now knows [I have] no idea what [text slang] is.” It is noteworthy, however, that I am the only fool in history who has ever had a comment completely written in text slang – and lower case no less — published in InsideHigherEd (go to “Revising the Teaching of Writing” and check out my post, “allright e.j.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/13/denver)

Fourth, one of my favorite cartoons is Randall Munroe’s “xkcd,” and his stick figures have sent me to Google to check out a little text slang more times than I can count.

http://xkcd.com/

By the way, Munroe is quite bright – if more than a little weird – and, on a couple of occasions, I have suggested to Scott that he should interview him and write an article about xkcd. I have also suggested to IHE that they replace “Teachable Moments” with xkcd.

Fifth, on-line “dictionaries” of text slang are ubiquitous. Here’s one ...

http://www.web-friend.com/help/lingo/chatslang.html

Finally, I am not a fan of text slang. I am, however, the father of two computer scientist sons with whom I communicate daily ... on-line, of course, and frequently using IM. I treasure those interactions, but oh, that text slang. Ugh!

That said, my earlier post was for the purpose “supporting” text slang by demonstrating that the “format” of normal written communication contains lots of information (data) that our minds find either unnecessary or only marginally useful. As you can see, every “more-than-four-characters” word in my post has the first and last characters intact while randomly permuting the characters in between. Yet our minds make sense of this, and we can read the words almost as easily as when the words are properly expressed.

So you see, I thought I was being clever ... alas, there is a fine line between being a humorist and being a fool. As l33t dud3 so accurately observed, I was waaaay over on the “fool side” of that one ... but, of course, not because I am ignorant of text slang.

P.S. I’m not certain what the source of the jumbled characters phenomenon is, but I am fairly certain the claim that it’s “aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy” is an urban legend.

Frizbane Manley, at 11:05 am EDT on October 16, 2008