Feb

27

Text Messaging- A way to stay in touch with your Grandchild

Posted by maureen

February 27, 2007 |

The newest way to stay in touch with grandchildren isn’t by calling or e-mailing; the modern way is to send a text message. I must admit that I like to text to our teenage grandchildren and thought I was doing pretty well getting a simple sentence to them in under two hours! What I didn’t realize was just how quick and efficient they are. They can text messages at a frantic pace!
Today teens use their phones throughout the day to keep in touch with friends and “texting” is especially appealing to teenagers because it’s fast and they can do it anywhere. Instant messaging was first used on personal computers when words became abbreviated and common phrases became acronyms. One of the most common being “LOL” used instead of “laugh out loud” What teens have done is to create a text-messaging lingo that overcomes the limitations of space and difficulty of writing words on a numeric phone keypad. Teens have now claimed it for their own and are continually adding to their language as they discover and share new abbreviations and acronyms with new phone users. There are even dictionaries to keep them up to date with the newest additions or to help translate. Here are some examples to give you a feel for lingo:

GAL - Get a Life
G2G- Got to go
AEAP - As Early As Possible
AWGTHTGTTA - Are We Going To Go Through This Again
BRB - Be Right Back
CWYL - Chat With You Later
CYT or SYT - See You Tomorrow
EI23 - Easy As 1,2,3
EM? - Excuse Me?
L8R - Later
ROTFL - Rolling on the Floor Laughing

Here’s a short conversation in SMS:
how wz d pRT last nyt? Did U hav :)? Got 2 go, c U l8r
Translation:How was the party last night? Did you have fun? Got to go, see you later.

Text messaging is not without emotion and nuances have been added to plain text with the help of Smiley faces. Instead of explaining something they just stick a smiley face : ) on there to show someone, ‘I mean this as a joke’ instead of choosing the words to reflect that they’re joking. Smiley faces are created by using characters and punctuation marks in sequences that look like facial expressions might. When viewing text smiley faces, they are all sideways. Here are some basics to get you started in understanding what the faces are:
The close bracket represents a sideways smile )

Add in the colon and you have sideways eyes ” : “

Put them together to make a smiley face” :)”

Use the dash - to add a nose ” :-)”
Change the colon to a semi-colon ; and you have a winking face ” ;)” with a nose ” ;-)”
Put a lower case o (halo) on top and now you have a winking, smiling angel “0;)” with a nose “0;-)”
Use the letter 8 in place of the colon for sunglasses ” 8-)”

For my part I don’t text often enough to become proficient or to learn the hundreds of acronyms that are standard fare for them. Still it’s nice to drop one in here and there just to keep the grandchildren wondering.

TAFN folks. cum bac n C us agn! :)


Comments

4 Comments so far

  1. steve campbel on February 28, 2007 7:10 am

    i use www.create-ringtone.com to create and send FREE custom ringtones, wallpaper, mp3 and video files to cell phones around the world

  2. Garry on February 28, 2007 3:16 pm

    I was at a football last year and a young girl around 13 was texting in the seat below us. She could text msg faster than I can talk. I was amazed .

  3. Jenny Skinner on March 15, 2007 4:54 am

    Type your comment here.

    I now know I’m getting old!!

  4. maureen on March 16, 2007 7:40 pm

    Yes, but you can look pretty cool if you just stand there and just keep pushing buttons like you’re texting..if we can’t beat them ..then let’s cheat!!

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