I Think You Need a Decoder Ring

I Think You Need a Decoder Ring for That Text Message

         I will say this now and upfront: text messaging is a waste to our society, and it degrades our language to a boiling pot of inedible mashed potatoes. I do not know why mashed potatoes, but it seems like a good analogy. I do pose a query however. Is it impossible to use complete sentences when typing out a text message? I mean, they now make those cool phones with the mini built-in keyboards.

         'OMGYHGTBKMWOCCCSILAUAWDUTUR?'

         Or, ‘Oh My Gosh You Have Got to be Kidding Me, Writing Out Complete Compound-Complex Sentences Is Lame and Uncool and Who Do You Think You Are?’

         In the U.S.A. (because people find it hard to say and spell United States of America), text messages are part of daily life. Don’t get me wrong, I use texts as well. Only it takes me ten minutes to type out a sentence, which makes me wonder why I do not just use the buttons to call the person to whom I am typing. I especially hate getting back messages for one simple reason. Reading text messages is an excruciatingly long experience beating out successfully trying to scoop yogurt out of a Yoplait cup with a tablespoon. It’s not so much the text message itself as it is the lingo involved in the text messaging experience. These messages are full of ominous acronyms and numbers, and make you think that someone from a different planet is trying to contact you. Take one of my friends who loves to text messages. Whenever I get something from him, I feel like I am reading cryptography.

LOL.

         Texting is a new language. Textisms are abbreviated words that you need a decoder ring in order to figure out. But texting is a language that most teenagers and young adults are beginning to use excessively. Kids are now being brought up by this language and it is beginning to affect the way they use words while at school and at home. Teachers are now battling a war against acronyms. A lot of cultures have different jargon, but the colloquial words are kept within the community, unlike with texting. Texting has absorbed itself into the mainstream and is being used wherever, whenever. The fact that people now use letters and numbers randomly in papers raises a concern. Not as large of a concern as embedding lists of textisms into dictionaries. Yes, shortened and abbreviated words people use in texting listed in a dictionary. How could that not harm how we speak?

         Textisms are the result of those rotten mashed potatoes. R U Seriz? Darn straight I am. They downplay the English-language and slowly chip away the foundation to sentences and words. Forget syntax, just text it. While shortening words is a real timesaver, it does not benefit anyone. Only ten seconds are saved when it comes to typing out the word ‘tomorrow’. While many words have been shortened over the years, textisms is practically its own language. How pretentious. Shortening of so many words might be due to the 160 character limit when it comes to texting, but how hard is it to use more than one spreadsheet? Or in fact, talk to the person? Someone I know says that it’s cheaper to text and that he doesn’t like to talk on the phone. I’d rather waste a dollar sounding practical and smart than to spend ten cents to look like I am a Mesopotamian. That’s just me though; the man with yogurt all over his face.

         I believe we like to pretend we are part of some special secret governmental foreign affair unit, and the only way to contact another person is by using random letters and numbers to convey our thoughts and feelings that no one will understand. Like when we were kids, we thought the invisible ink pen was the greatest. Only with texting, most of the world now knows now what we’re saying. So, like with the disappearance of invisible ink, we are going to have to soon come up with another cool way to secretly message one another. Or perhaps perfect the use of telekinesis. Until that time though, we will continue to send strings of letters to one another and will continue until we begin to say these acronyms out loud and forget that dissertations are to be professionally written.

         I predict a new country in a few years: The UST. Of course, you have no idea what that means, and if you know English-language, you will never know for this country will use nothing but acronyms and grunts. I believe it shall take the place of California.

Ah-nuld 4 PREZ 2020.