There’s been a lot in the past ten years about phones and the degeneration of language. Just look at “gr8” as a replacement for “great.”

I like to think of myself as “educated,” and “gr8”, for me, is an abomination.

What does “gr8” mean? Did something commendable happen? Or did something wonderful happen? Is it something that made me, or you, happy? Or am I just saying "good"?

Each of these is different. Commendable, Wonderful, Happiness, Goodness. All of these become “gr8”.

But it's not about abbreviations. With smartphones and full keypads, and auto-correct, people do spell out stuff more than some years ago.

Still, as we use phones (and the Internet) more, our language is becoming less expressive.

It could just be a matter of saving time. Even if I want to write you a proper letter — say something like "I disagree with your views; let's have a proper debate about this" — it's much faster to say "I dnt agre lets talk" [and no full-stop].

Then there's literacy. Think of someone as young as 15, who's received all his/her reading material from websites (apart from school textbooks) — and conducted all his/her communication over the Internet. How likely is this person to read anything longer than a few pages, whether from a book or any electronic medium?

The beauty here is, there’s the absolute flipside. People who can’t really read — I’m talking about the underprivileged — have SMS. You have the SMS Bible. “In In da Bginnin God cre8d.” Well, that’s anathema to people who are educated, but to those who aren’t... well, this makes them able to read. The Bible. From The Register of a long time ago: “The Bible Society in Australia has taken the bold step of translating the entire Bible into txt-talk which mobile-savvy believers can disseminate via SMS in 31,173 bite-sized verses.”

It’s fascinating that the same thing can cause people to become illiterate, but also to be able to read the Bible. That last article is worth reading.
What do you think about SMS-speak? Sound off!

Tags : sms, phones, literacy