I wanted to start this article as “Are you texting?” written as “R u txtng?” But I could not bring myself to do it. Why? Simply because it looks UGLY. Hey…take no offense. I have nothing against people who like to use the sms lingo. It just bothers me…a lot. Once I had shared my distress regarding this grotesque travesty of the English language with my alumni association. While most people saw my point an elder member had thrown some bitter (and somewhat amusing) sarcasm in my way. This person felt that only filthy rich people can afford the luxury of typing out entire words since the mobile services allow only 160 characters per sms. [ I didn’t care much about this person’s opinion. In another discussion this person had said Rafflesia was this person’s favourite flower. Reason? It emits a vile odour similar to that of rotting flesh. The day has not come when I would start valuing the opinion of such wack jobs.]
Some crusaders of the sms lingo might say 'Who has the time to write “r”, “i”, “g”, “h”, “t” when just an “r” followed by an “8” serves the purpose?' A thousand other reasons could be offered that would sound perfectly sensible and yet it would continue to bother me. The time factor is indeed a relevant point. And one day when I would lose out on some plump offer because of my lust for unadulterated spellings people would come to sympathize with me while secretly thinking, “Serves her right.”
As far as the cost factor is involved the mobile services did listen to the prayers of the sms addicts. New schemes have been launched which allow us to send texts for free(almost). Yet people keep on using contractions… It did not eradicate the prevalent evil and introduced a new one. Flurry of forwarded texts! Every one is succumbing to it. Me? Of course. I forward every text that I find a wee bit interesting (but not before I edit out the grammatical errors and expand the annoying spelling contractions.)
Gone are the days when we sent the exceptionally clever jokes to the ones with a quick wit, shared the “best friends forever” messages with the dearest of the friends, saved the mushy romantic messages for the latest crush (and deleted the drafts after getting over them) and forwarded the classic insults to the ones who had the humour to appreciate them. Now every body sends out every thing to every one (may be the names of the prude ones are left out while sending out crude texts).
Another new trend is sharing overwhelmingly romantic texts with every one…the sender has in mind the picture of one face but where their mind is blessed with brilliant picturesque clarity their guts lack the zeal to the tell the “face in mind” about their feelings. The way out? Resort to bulk texts! Send the lovey-dovey sms out to the entire group. That way one gets to express his/her feelings and she/he does not get the liberty to reject him/her.
And of course there are the immensely irritating texts from some dubious companies. Yesterday one sms actually asked me to send my name followed by a certain code to a certain number to know whether I am fake or real! If you want you may doubt my integrity but to ask me to doubt myself… Inanity has indeed achieved new levels.
Not that I complain about the huge volume of texts…makes me feel good actually. (Not the ones from phoney companies though) [And also if my mobile is silent on a particular day I get to know that something is wrong with the handset…no kidding…this has truly happened.] But I do yearn for the days when people meant what they wrote in an sms.
PS- Man might worry his head off in pursuit of progress but there would always be cribbers who would enjoy all the luxuries bestowed on them dirt-cheap and yet find excuses to laud the olden days when they had been cribbing to be in possession of the same luxuries.
