Txt Spk iz Gr8

From a very early age I have been taught to write the English language correctly, I try and carry this trend over when I’m on the internet.

However, over the years a new language has developed based on English, which I’m sure everyone is familiar with these days, it’s commonly known as SMS language.

It appears that it originally came from bulletin boards and chatrooms particularly the ones that are popular on the AOL network and is, therefore, sometimes called AOL speak.

The main reason why this language came about over the years is that kids began sending text messages to each other via their mobile phones, however the problem lies when they wish to send a message longer than 160 characters, this would span over two or more messages, meaning more costs. As you can probably imagine, kids soon got the idea that you could type a message quicker by using this language and keep costs down by keeping your message within the 160 character limit.

Although this is probably information you already know, recently, questions of whether using this type of language should be acceptable or not have come up.

To begin with I agreed with the majority of people who said English is English, we should use it correctly. However I began to think about where English actually came from, and how evolution has turned English into the language it is today.

I do agree that when people write articles, reports and such it would be probably be best if true English was used, however who are we to say that this new language is not acceptable in today’s modern world, after all it is us who created the need for it, and it is us who encouraged it.

I think over the next few years we will be forced to accept and embrace this new language as part of every day life, as an extension of the English language, that is of course, unless it has already happened.

1 Comment »

  1. Beki said,

    July 28, 2008 @ 2:28 pm

    Reading this article made me laugh..

    Everybody assumes all kids in today’s world type in text talk. Well i am 16 - Not extremely bright (as my spelling may show) but i hate typeing the sms language - I know more adults then children that use sms language - It’s just how people adapt to things..

    And weather or not everyone will accept the new language - They’ll have no choice really, saying the don’t accept it will not make it dissapear. Everyo should just bite their tongues and hope the language dies down.

    This new language was created the same way everything else was created. We should just be thankful there is help on the internet to translate it all haha.

    Thanks x

RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URL

Leave a Comment