By Ronald Ayers
They are a multi-colored, multi-cultural race moving about the streets of America with their heads down, and their eyes fixed upon the electronic devices in their hands. Their fingers move with the speed of light over tiny cell phone buttons to send encrypted messages to any VBF, or to NE1 who's hand held devise, or portable computer will accept their transmissions.
You might see them doing their primordial click, click, click under a table at restaurants, during church services, in classrooms, at the mall, or while driving a car. Some even click, click while lying upon their beds making love.
They are ubiquitous. They are changing the way we communicate with each other.
They are the Textatoids--an emerging mutation of Humanoid-Android who converse amongst themselves and the world around them in 140 to 160 character long texts. The conversation they engage in, the written communication they use is Text Speak.
Text Speak is the emerging Textatoid dialect whereby the speaker can convey a lengthy thought by abbreviating phonetically. Text Speak uses substitutive letters, numerals and characters for complete English sentences.
It is the relentless onward march of the texters, the SMS (Short Message Service) vandals who are doing to our language what Atilla The Hun did to his neighbours fifteen hundred years ago.
My wife and my daughter have been bitten by the Textatoids. Each suffers from the disease of Textoiditis.
Just this morning my twelve year old daughter Denise moved though our kitchen in a catonic state. Her fingers zipped over the keyboard of the smartphone I bought here for Christmas as she mumbled this unintelligible gibberish:
"My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3:-@ kids FTF. ILNY, it's a gr8 plc."
My wife Annie use to be a Stepford wife. Annie has morphed into a Textatoid. She has a cell phone growing out of her right ear. Annie translated my daughter's Text Speak gibberish for me.
"What Denise said Ron is that her summer holidays was a complete waste of time. Before, we used to go to New York to see my brother, his girlfriend and their three screaming kids face to face. She loves New York. It's a great place."
Why couldn't Denise have said that in plain English?
Denise and the Textatoids are destroying the King's English: They're pillaging The King's punctuation! They're savaging the King's sentences! Raping his vocabulary!
The Textatoids must be stopped!
Turns out it's not just modern youths that can't be bothered writing out their words properly in communications. Text speak was being used by lazy Victorian poets more than 100 years ago. 4 real!
In an exhibition of the history of the English language in London recently, The British Library featured excerpts from poetry from in and around the 1860's. Much of the poetry text feature a similar style of abbreviations to the ones we poke into touch screens and instant messaging windows.
Here's an example of Victorian Text Speak from the poem "Essay to Miss Catherine Jay"
He says he love UsXS,
UR virtuous and Y's,
In XLNCULXL,
All others in his I's.
OMG! Is a dead Victorian poet channeling through my child?
The United Nations (UN) reported recently that the invasion of the Textatoids is spreading across the globe. According to the UN text messaging is the most widely used mobile data service worldwide, with 74 percent of 2.6 billion mobile phone users worldwide, actively sending and receiving text messages.
This new dialect has only a written form. Any attempt to speak it out loud is both impractical and unusually difficult, despite the fact that all the specifics are words and phrases used in everyday speech.
I've tried to teach myself Text Speak. I've failed. I can't grasp the nuances of the language. Unlike the use of traditional English, with Text Speak, it is impossible to use body language, voice inflection, pitch, tone or make eye contact when communicating with others.
OMG!
I've come to loath "Texting" because of the distractions it has foisted upon my once Stepford Wife. This past fourth of July, Annie's use of her cell phone to "text" a 'pup gal mlk' message to Denise while in bumper to bumper traffic caused our 2011 Cadillac to be totaled!
That pissed ME off big time!
Textatoids don't use their cell phones to talk anymore! They carry on entire conversations through texting. Weren't phones invented for talking? You want to write messages, that's what e-mail is for! You want to use your cell phone while you're driving? Fine! Then TALK! Don't text! At least if you talk, you can keep your eyes on the road!
Textatoids like my wife and my daughter will be responsible for the death of conversation as we Baby Boomers know it. How do I know this?
Denise used her smart phone to send me an email message asking permission to have six of her friends over for a pajama party.
My four year old son Jeffery who uses a baby-fied form of Pig Latin translated what I said to Denise.
"Adad edsay oooyea anca avway a artypa."
"Ooooolca." Said Denise.
On the night of the pajama party, Denise's friends arrived. They spent the evening sitting in a circle on the living room floor. Not a human word was uttered. Rather than use their cellphones to text talk to one another, the adolescent Textatoids chose to use their barbaric utterances to text speak their dumb messages back and forth.
"ZUP? 420!" said a boy Textatoid.
"Suyf!" said a girl Textatoid.
"U SorG?" asked a boy Textatoid
"URS!" said the girl Textatoid
"UrWOMBAT!" replied a boy Textatoid
"WWJD?" asked Denise.
There you have it. The end of conversation. The end of civilization.
As technology changes it affects the way we communicate. But basic communication and interpersonal skills should not go to the way side.
We Baby Boomers can't afford to be Luddites. We must find a way to embrace the invasion of the Textatoids while holding on to our core values and skills like the ability to write a coherent English sentence with punctuation, and the correct subject verb agreement.
When her pajama party was over, Denise came and gave me a kiss on the cheek to say thank you.
"143," said Denise.
My head bent. I starred at the palm of my right hand that had morphed into the shape of a cellphone. The fingers of my left hand tap danced across my cellphone keyboard.
"1432." I said.
-30-
They are a multi-colored, multi-cultural race moving about the streets of America with their heads down, and their eyes fixed upon the electronic devices in their hands. Their fingers move with the speed of light over tiny cell phone buttons to send encrypted messages to any VBF, or to NE1 who's hand held devise, or portable computer will accept their transmissions.
You might see them doing their primordial click, click, click under a table at restaurants, during church services, in classrooms, at the mall, or while driving a car. Some even click, click while lying upon their beds making love.
They are ubiquitous. They are changing the way we communicate with each other.
They are the Textatoids--an emerging mutation of Humanoid-Android who converse amongst themselves and the world around them in 140 to 160 character long texts. The conversation they engage in, the written communication they use is Text Speak.
Text Speak is the emerging Textatoid dialect whereby the speaker can convey a lengthy thought by abbreviating phonetically. Text Speak uses substitutive letters, numerals and characters for complete English sentences.
It is the relentless onward march of the texters, the SMS (Short Message Service) vandals who are doing to our language what Atilla The Hun did to his neighbours fifteen hundred years ago.
My wife and my daughter have been bitten by the Textatoids. Each suffers from the disease of Textoiditis.
Just this morning my twelve year old daughter Denise moved though our kitchen in a catonic state. Her fingers zipped over the keyboard of the smartphone I bought here for Christmas as she mumbled this unintelligible gibberish:
"My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3:-@ kids FTF. ILNY, it's a gr8 plc."
My wife Annie use to be a Stepford wife. Annie has morphed into a Textatoid. She has a cell phone growing out of her right ear. Annie translated my daughter's Text Speak gibberish for me.
"What Denise said Ron is that her summer holidays was a complete waste of time. Before, we used to go to New York to see my brother, his girlfriend and their three screaming kids face to face. She loves New York. It's a great place."
Why couldn't Denise have said that in plain English?
Denise and the Textatoids are destroying the King's English: They're pillaging The King's punctuation! They're savaging the King's sentences! Raping his vocabulary!
The Textatoids must be stopped!
Turns out it's not just modern youths that can't be bothered writing out their words properly in communications. Text speak was being used by lazy Victorian poets more than 100 years ago. 4 real!
In an exhibition of the history of the English language in London recently, The British Library featured excerpts from poetry from in and around the 1860's. Much of the poetry text feature a similar style of abbreviations to the ones we poke into touch screens and instant messaging windows.
Here's an example of Victorian Text Speak from the poem "Essay to Miss Catherine Jay"
He says he love UsXS,
UR virtuous and Y's,
In XLNCULXL,
All others in his I's.
OMG! Is a dead Victorian poet channeling through my child?
The United Nations (UN) reported recently that the invasion of the Textatoids is spreading across the globe. According to the UN text messaging is the most widely used mobile data service worldwide, with 74 percent of 2.6 billion mobile phone users worldwide, actively sending and receiving text messages.
This new dialect has only a written form. Any attempt to speak it out loud is both impractical and unusually difficult, despite the fact that all the specifics are words and phrases used in everyday speech.
I've tried to teach myself Text Speak. I've failed. I can't grasp the nuances of the language. Unlike the use of traditional English, with Text Speak, it is impossible to use body language, voice inflection, pitch, tone or make eye contact when communicating with others.
OMG!
I've come to loath "Texting" because of the distractions it has foisted upon my once Stepford Wife. This past fourth of July, Annie's use of her cell phone to "text" a 'pup gal mlk' message to Denise while in bumper to bumper traffic caused our 2011 Cadillac to be totaled!
That pissed ME off big time!
Textatoids don't use their cell phones to talk anymore! They carry on entire conversations through texting. Weren't phones invented for talking? You want to write messages, that's what e-mail is for! You want to use your cell phone while you're driving? Fine! Then TALK! Don't text! At least if you talk, you can keep your eyes on the road!
Textatoids like my wife and my daughter will be responsible for the death of conversation as we Baby Boomers know it. How do I know this?
Denise used her smart phone to send me an email message asking permission to have six of her friends over for a pajama party.
My four year old son Jeffery who uses a baby-fied form of Pig Latin translated what I said to Denise.
"Adad edsay oooyea anca avway a artypa."
"Ooooolca." Said Denise.
On the night of the pajama party, Denise's friends arrived. They spent the evening sitting in a circle on the living room floor. Not a human word was uttered. Rather than use their cellphones to text talk to one another, the adolescent Textatoids chose to use their barbaric utterances to text speak their dumb messages back and forth.
"ZUP? 420!" said a boy Textatoid.
"Suyf!" said a girl Textatoid.
"U SorG?" asked a boy Textatoid
"URS!" said the girl Textatoid
"UrWOMBAT!" replied a boy Textatoid
"WWJD?" asked Denise.
There you have it. The end of conversation. The end of civilization.
As technology changes it affects the way we communicate. But basic communication and interpersonal skills should not go to the way side.
We Baby Boomers can't afford to be Luddites. We must find a way to embrace the invasion of the Textatoids while holding on to our core values and skills like the ability to write a coherent English sentence with punctuation, and the correct subject verb agreement.
When her pajama party was over, Denise came and gave me a kiss on the cheek to say thank you.
"143," said Denise.
My head bent. I starred at the palm of my right hand that had morphed into the shape of a cellphone. The fingers of my left hand tap danced across my cellphone keyboard.
"1432." I said.
-30-