1. asia! 2006 ISSUE THREE 63
SMS LINGO
life
BY SKY CHIA
TEXT
REVOLUTION
SCHOOLED IN TEXT
“r u goin 2 da prty? wat u up 2 l8er?”
If you don’t understand that, you’re probably
above a certain age. Because one of the reasons us
teenagers use abbreviated spelling when ‘chatting’ on
MSN Messenger or e-mail is to prevent parents—or
any other adult— from reading and understanding our
conversations and e-mail. Having said this, many
adults these days are also using this new form of lan-
guage, but for different reasons.
to make lives easier for teens chatting on the Net, writ-
ing SMS’s, e-mail and pretty much anything. As one 17-
year-old said, “…each SMS costs money and takes time.
If you could save time and money, wouldn’t you?”
Another reason why teenagers have chosen to use
chat-lingo over normal English is that the words have
> > > >
Learning chat-lingo is
one way to leap across
the generation gap.
ave you ever received a text message from your child that reads like Martian? :> Such as: “mum i
m goin 2 b l8 comin om. d prt onle ndz @ 1”. (Translation: Mum, I am going to be late coming
home. The party only ends at one am.) :> You are not alone. Parents all over the English-speaking
world are getting increasingly flustered and frustrated over the SMS (short message service) texts
and e-mail their kids send them. Not only do these messages come chockful of short forms and
acronyms, but they are often interspersed with emoticons and smileys ( J), which make them that much
harder for the over-30 crowd to decipher. Which is, truth be told, exactly why many teenagers do it. :>
Welcome to the world of chat-lingo, a pidgin English that is spreading all over the world like wild fire. You
find it online, you find it in phone messages and you even come across it in everyday life. It is so pervasive
that some older folks are (predictably) complaining that it is eroding the standard of English. There are (also
predictably) stories about how addiction to chat-lingo has made some teenagers unable to deal with normal
life and fail their exams.
These stories may or may not be real. The truth is that they do not make a jot of difference to the users,
now numbering hundreds of millions and growing fast. Like it or not, chat-lingo is evolving into a new lan-
guage, living, vibrant and changing with the times. You may despise it, but unless you learn to read it, you
are going to have problems communicating with the younger generation.
But don’t despair. Learning chat-lingo is not like learning French or Russian. All you need to do is go to
this website (http://www.transl8it.com), type in the gibberish you get from your kids and it will be translat-
ed into plain English. Or you can plan a message in English and have it translated into chat-lingo, which
hopefully will impress your kids and get their attention.
And things are not necessarily all that bad. Sky Chia, a 15-year-old Eurasian who grew up in Singapore
and Australia, argues that just because she converses with her friends in chat-lingo does not mean she can’t
speak or write English well. Read her piece, which follows, and make up your own mind.
> > > >
H
GETTYIMAGES

2. 64 asia! 2006 ISSUE TWO
SMS LINGO
life
> > > > lol >> laugh out loud rofl >> rolling on floor laughing tere >> there
fewer letters; therefore it makes typing faster and their
lives easier. For example “gtg 4 a mtg btw, joke was
gr8” instead of “got to go for a meeting by the way,
joke was great”. Compare 21 characters to 38.
Also, the words are spelt just as they sound, not
how some old guy decided how it should be spelt. This
means there are no spelling mistakes as long as the
word being spelt is understandable. This also makes it a
lot quicker and easier to write. For example “R u ok? C
u tom 4 lunch”. Meaning “Are you okay? See you
tomorrow for lunch.”
Many adults, in particular parents and teachers,
believe the use of abbreviations is ruining our spelling.
From my own experience, teens know when to use
chat-lingo and when not to. Most teens think it’s alright
to use it in chat rooms, e-mail, informal letters, but it all
stops when it comes to school work and assessments.
Some teens even feel it’s alright for them to use chat-
lingo in draft copies of their school work to save time.
Are teenagers using chat-lingo so often that they use
it in formal school work without even realising it? I
thought it wasn’t common as I haven’t see any of my own
classmates using chat-lingo during school assessments.
So I decided to ask Kalyani Kausikan, a high school
English literature teacher in Singapore. She said,
“Teenagers are using the abbreviations in their exams
without them even realising that they’re doing it! I see
it all the time when I mark these exams!”
I asked an ex-principal her opinion on this subject
and she replied: “I guess it’s okay if it’s used only for SMS
because it saves time and money, but on the Internet I
would only say that it is okay if the person knows how
to write English properly and knows how to spell cor-
rectly. I wouldn’t teach a young child how to write like
this because they don’t know how to spell correctly and
they may think that the abbreviations are acceptable.”
She added, “There are many different types of lan-
guages that are used on different occasions, like essay
language, phone language or the language between a
mother and daughter, or two lovers. There is formal lan-
guage and the language you use in the markets. I would
say it was okay, but you must be able to switch between
languages easily to suit the occasion.”
Believe it or not, these days it is not only teenagers
who use chat-lingo for SMS and e-mail, but many
adults are also following the trend. If you ask them,
they’ll tell you the same thing; it’s convenient and saves
time. My father, a journalist who never got round to
learning proper shorthand, now uses chat-lingo as a
form of shorthand! As for those adults who think it’s
wrong to use chat-lingo: Get with it!
Have I ever been confused by chat-lingo? Yes. Only
when adults use it! For example, when my mother sent me
the following SMS “r u mph 2 cnt me”. This SMS left both
me and my dad in a daze trying to think what it could mean.
We rang her up and found out she meant “Are you using
the mobile phone to contact me?” Another time was when
my uncle sent me this SMS, “nt gg. tnks”. Have adults come
up with their own secret code? What he was trying to say
was “Not going. Thanks”
With any new change there will always be pros and
cons. Whether you are with it or against it, teenagers
are not going to stop using chat-lingo. It is only getting
more and more popular.
nvm >> never mind tho >> though thru >> through > > > >
@ >> at brb >> be right back cya >> see you da >> the dw >> don’t worry gtg/g2g >> got to go sry >> sorry > > > >
As for those adults who
think it’s wrong to use
chat-lingo: Get with it!