A convert to the world of texting
I have been a recent convert to texting. Aside from it being
another fun and useful thing you can do with your cell phone, it’s
often quite practical
– and besides which, it’s often the only communication my
teenagers will respond to.
A convert to the world of texting
I have been a recent convert to texting. Aside from it being another fun and useful thing you can do with your cell phone, it’s often quite practical – and besides which, it’s often the only communication my teenagers will respond to.
But there are certain aspects of texting that I’m afraid I will never get used to. And I’m sure this automatically labels me as an Old Fogie, but so be it.
My first big quibble with the whole texting phenomenon (aside from texting while driving, which I’m not even going to get into right now; that’s a whole can of worms by itself), is that I really hate the fact that “text” has become a verb.
It’s often awkward when nouns become verbs. It’s kind of like words going through puberty, and it takes us all a while to get used to the changes.
But I’m having a particularly hard time with “text,” “texted” and “texting.”
The word “texting” is okay. I’ve used it myself. But “texted”? Please. It grates on my ears whenever someone uses it in conversation: “So, I texted him, and …”
I think part of the problem is that it’s a really unattractive-sounding word. One syllable becomes two, and the two land with a heavy thud upon the eardrum. Admittedly, in print, it does not seem quite as bad.
And believe me, “texted” is making it into print, as I discovered while perusing very important reading material last week: People magazine. “So, I texted Brad Pitt, and …”
No doubt it will be added to the Oxford English Dictionary any day now.
So “texted” (shudder) is my first quibble, and it is a big one for me. I am officially boycotting this so-called word, instead using the more civilized-sounding alternative, “I sent a text to (fill in the blank), and …”
My second quibble is that I seem to have to learn a whole new language in order to text. And at this time in my life, I have a terribly hard time learning anything new.
Texting is not like normal English. There are abbreviations that have become the norm in texting, and they are very, very important. If you don’t use the proper abbreviations, your children will laugh at you … and not in a nice way.
And I hate the abbreviations.
I am used to spelling everything out. Hey, I’m a writer. But then I get messages from my kids like this: “R U coming?” or “Yupp C U there.”
This is the way they’ve learned to do it. But it’s different for me, since I am an official Old Fogie.
I can’t help it. I just can’t text like that unless I put conscious effort into it. I automatically use full words. It’s a hard habit to break.
More than once, I have typed out a text in English and then gone back and abbreviated, because I don’t want my kids to make fun of me.
Except I don’t know the lingo. Sometimes I make up my own abbreviations and then nobody knows what I’m talking about.
I need a glossary of shortened text words in order to do this the right way, but where can I get it?
Maybe, if I’m lucky, someone will text me one.
