Youth

Shud txt spk B allwd in schls?

Julie, 14, Manchester – I would happily watched you being lowered into a tank of acid. Ben, 15, you are wise in the ways of the world.

Mind you, I employ the same language I use for text messages for every type of written communication, on account of how I find ‘txt spk’ deeply unreadable and offensive on the eye, and I use full and correct English in text messages. I will reword, or expand to two or more messages rather than use contractions like “gr8”.

On a similar note, a friend of mine has registered apostrophes.org, but doesn’t seem to have done anything with it yet.

3 Responses to “Youth”

  1. Lori says:

    Yes, I’d rather spend an extra minute or so composing my text message rather than use those abbreviations. My worst offence has to be using u (rather than you) and missing off a full stop just to save having to send a second message. It was unavoidable and won’t happen again.

  2. Phil says:

    Err, I don’t understand why people use ‘text speak’. My phone has great prediction on it, not a problem, all my text are in *english*. Ben’s comment is excellent. Mind you, I think using text speak should be punishable by death. But then my judgements are usually pretty harsh. DESTROY! DESTROY!

  3. nayf says:

    I actually think it does wonders for my powers of communication to learn to express a sentiment in perfect English in 160 characters which would normally take 450. Or, to paraphrase, ‘txt is gr8.’