Text Speak

[Peter Goodey]

What can I say about Text Speak (or is it TXT SPK)?

Dontcha just hate it?

[Peter Goodey]

By the way, I've sent about one text message in my entire life! I had to be closely supervised and got into trouble for asking where the comma was on the keypad!

[mary elms]

Never have to deal with it because I REFUSE to be available 24 hours a day just because someone wants to be able to contact me at THEIR convenience. I need a bit of MY time when I choose what I do or my STRESS levels hit the roof. And during MY time I don't want to answer my mobile phone so it stays switched off. And it's NOT selfish it's survival!

OOPS!

Mary.

[Geoffers]

By the way, what is a mobile 'phone?

I keep hearing them mentioned and have often wondered.

Grumpy Neanderthal of Charlbury

[Mythology]

I have one, but it only travels with me if I'm planning to meet someone, so that we can get in touch in the event of either of us being delayed. It came with a £10 voucher about two years ago, and I still have nearly £3 left, that's how much I use it. I have to remember to phone myself up once every six months so that it doesn't get cancelled.

I know how to dial a number, I know which button to press to answer it, and that's as far as it goes - what all the rest of the nonsense is, I have no idea, and really don't want to know. Using a full-sized keyboard is difficult enough, I'm blowed if I'm going to learn how to send text messages and drive myself round the bend trying to get it right on those fiddly little buttons - it's bad enough just dialling a number!

I refuse to even try and read, let alone answer, forum posts written in text speak - not that it happens here, thankfully, but my ISP's forum has plenty.

(Edit - ..... and I refuse to set foot in shops called [Whatever]4U and such like!)

[Rod Neep]

By the way, what is a mobile 'phone?

I keep hearing them mentioned and have often wondered.

Its that thing that people in London have stuck to their ears when they walk down the street. But you don't see them, because they have them hidden underneath their hands.

BTW... in Germany, they call it a "handy"

Rod
MstrCntkrsOlFrt

[Ladkyis]

I refuse to use any shortened form of the words when sending a text message. My children keep in touch more often using the text message and I can still turn it off when I don't want to be available. My phone belonged to my dad who died two years ago. he frequently asked me to put some more money on his phone and I would do this for him and after he died the nursing home insisted I take the phone away immediately incase it was stolen. It would not work but I could not do as my husband suggested and throw it away because dad had called me on it only two days before he died. Two weeks later I took it to a phone shop and the kind man jiggled the battery and it worked again. I read the instruction book and then checked to see the amount held in credit. the strangely robotic voice informed me that there was £114.63 credit in the account. I am still using it two years later.

Ann

[Geoffers]

I know how to dial a number, I know which button to press to answer it, and that's as far as it goes - what all the rest of the nonsense is, I have no idea

You've lost me already, it seems too complicated. If I'm at home and the 'phone rings I answer it; if I'm not at home then there is a facility for callers to record a message, which I can play back on my return. It seems to me that an industry has sprung up making a lot of money selling people something they didn't really need in the first place.

Grumpy of Charlbury
Officially - GrmpyDeChrlbry - GrmpyOlMn'sClb and CntkrsOlFrt

[Mythology]

"It seems to me that an industry has sprung up making a lot of money selling people something they didn't really need in the first place."

I couldn't agree more - if mine hadn't come as a gift, I wouldn't have bothered.
If, for instance, I'm at a record office and stumble across something that I think might be relevant to a friend, I use a pay-phone to call them. By dialling an 0800 number to link through to an alternative telephone company and bashing in the PIN number which they gave me (free) I don't need money for the pay-phone and it gets billed to my home number at a very reasonable 1.65 pence per minute, so what's the point of taking the mobile with me - it's just extra weight, isn't it?

[Peter Goodey]

Some time ago, the Guardian ran a competition to write a piece of poetry in text speak.

I didn't take much notice of it, probably because I didn't see the joke, but I do recall one entry which wasn't written in txt but was inspired by the theme of the competition and which struck me as very witty.

I think I can quote it in full

They phone you up,
Your mum and dad.