We Only Speak TXTSLNG

Yo. il meet u 2moro n den we cn dcyd wats 2 b done 4 Claire’s bday. Pls ask Anne 2 join us 2. Oh n I saw d vid u sent. Lol. So kul! Anyway, cu 2moro. Lmk d tym. Gtg.

If you were able to read and understand that entire message perfectly, you officially speak texting lingo.

Standard SMS messages originally had a limit of 160 characters and, indeed, many still do.

Type more than 160 characters in a SMS message and your phone will automatically start a second message. This will obviously then cost you more money or use up more of your SMS allowance. To compensate for this, and also to increase typing speed, text language has evolved.

With the advent of smart phones, chat apps and social media like Twitter, all of us have turned to writing in abbreviations to save time and character space. This new cyber slang is known as Texting language but has many other names too, such as, txt-speak, txtese, chatspeak, txt, txto, txt lingo, SMSish, txtslang, txt talk, etc.

Text lingo was never formally taught, but everyone these days uses chat jargon without ever having learnt the acronyms or short hand used. Sms language seems to have just spread with use and spread fast indeed. Codes like LOL or ROFL are sent ever so often but sender is definitely not rolling on the floor laughing at that moment. But surprisingly, you may even hear people saying “lol” in face-to-face conversations.

There are no standard rules for the creation and use of SMS languages. The most common method used to create abbreviations, that one notices is to just drop vowels in most words and use digits instead of letters which have the same pronunciation such as 2 for to/too; 4 for for, 8 for ate; etc. Also, typing an entire sentence in capital letters means the sender is actually shouting. Along with the use of such short forms, messages these days are hardly complete without the famous emoticons or smileys. We often read or reply in smileys only and there is no text included. Most common emoticons used are sad face, happy face, angry face, heart, flowers, cake, drinks.

At its peak, SMS lingo was the cause of vigorous debate due to its potentially detrimental effect on reading and writing. Academicians and linguists strongly condemned its use, claiming that we are saving time and space in communication at the cost of language accuracy. People who often use chat lingo are unable to write correctly while typing academic assignments or work emails. Many people do not prefer texting language and you might have come across some who specifically ask you to refrain from doing so while chatting with them.

Whether we use it or not, texting language seems like it’s here to stay. Take a look at some common as well as uncommon abbreviations used today-

Ootd: one of these days
Afaik: as far as I know
Imo: in my opinion
Wtg: wat to go
Gj: good job
Tbh: to be honest
Jk: just kidding
Ntim: not that it matters
Wdymbt: what do you mean by that
Xoxo: kisses