Do You Use Shortened Txt Msgs?

daveJAM

I despise short-hand texts. If i'm short on space, I use two messages. Most people I know have phones that will support it. Unless its just a few characters that can be fixed using & instead of "and" or similar. But what I really can't stand is improper use of case. I HATE WHEN PEOPLE SHOUT AT YOU IN A TEXT MESSAGE. or then there's this which really looks bad.

Stephen

I too hate "shortened" text messages. Anyone with a phone that's not a relic of the early 90's should have a predictive text/t9 facility and should bloody use it. Its a pain in the arse trying to decipher a load of gibberish when it could have easily been sent in ENGLISH.

ManWithThePlan

Originally posted by Victor
No, I use T9 almost always. Teh only time I would shorten words would be when my message barely exceeds the limit and isn't wort another message to finish.

Same here.

po0k

Originally posted by Swifty
I have maaad texting skillz so I can ignore the dictionary and type a message in perfect english

The dictionary limits you in ways. It doesnt recognise some words and then you have to go through the whole pain in the ass process off inputting the word into the thing so it'll recognise the word 'c0cksmoker' the next time you want to use it. Pfffah.

I've taught my phone all sorts of words, divx, mp3, faeg, kittencake, quakenet, irc, GeForce, several people's nicks, several strange placenames...I could go on....

What I want to know is, does anyone find it incredibly annoying when people constantly use txt speek on irc

Mossy Monk

i hate it when people send me messsages in that shortened text language. i saw something about it the other day when some girl in Scotland wrote an essay using it. everyone i know writes to me in a language i can understand because they might as well be writing in Dutch because i can't understand it. T9 is a feature on most phones these days, why don't people use it. but that too can be a problem though when people are bladdered

swiss

Originally posted by Space_Coyote:

a wise man once said:

Me fail English? That's unpossible!

Ah, that would be the redoubtable Ralph Wiggum

http://members.boards.ie/swiss/ralph[1].wav

I have no problem with reading and using shortened messages.. when it's easy to understand. Very common abbreviations like "4" instead of "for" or "four" and "2nite" instead of "tonight" does not disrupt the flow of a text, since they are so well recognised.

However, if a text is void of vowels, then that breaks very significantly from the flow of a text. We use vowels everyday in speech and writing, and coming across this form of text messages makes me (for one) pause to figure out exactly what's being said. I can usually figure it out, but why should I, after all the meaning would be intuitive should the person had taken a little more care sending the text.

Just because someone can read shortened text fluently doesn't mean that they should expect every who recieves their text to be as proficient. For example, I sent a text to my mother some time ago using some small abbreviations such as what I just mentioned. She told me afterwards she figured it out after a minute, if I had been any more terse she would never have figured it out.

So as long as your sure the recepient of your message can understand it clearly, it really doesn't matter what sort of format you use, just don't try to force other people to conform to your '1337' shrthnd txt msgs.

Sangre

I never use shorthand in a text message because with predictive text its much faster to type normally and its easier to read.

But when playing online I will use shorthand to insult someone between kills. Especially with games like Quake with no dead time its impossible to boost about your skills if you write properly

'ph33r m3 u uber n00bie, i r da l3370rz'

(p.s I know thats not shorthand )