I hvnt a clu! I was watching one of the MTV channels on Saturday night and they have a ticker on the bottom of the screen showing messages that people have sent in to greet their friends etc. The messages are sent in via text so generally read something like this:

“2 Kev n Danny – r u out l8tr? C u @ pub”

Phonetically, you can read through this and make sense of it – right? I admit to being an old fart and typing all of my text messages in correct English using appropriate punctuation so was delighted to see the following message displayed on the screen:

“Does anyone speak English anymore?”

My thoughts exactly :-) .

As Wikipedia says:
“Short message services are developing very rapidly throughout the world. In 2000, just 17 billion SMS messages were sent; in 2001, the number was up to 250 billion, and 500 billion SMS messages in 2004″. Given this kind of volume and the time it can take to type out a text, it’s reasonable that abbreviations have evolved and become standard within “text language”.

The rise of “text speak” is part of the continuing evolution of the English language – many years ago, abbreviations (always makes me laugh how long that word is..) such as “wouldn’t” or “can’t” were considered sloppy and inappropriate use of the language. I wouldn’t say that my own grammar is perfect but I always ensure that I use language appropriate to the situation at hand.

When applying for a job, you work so hard at getting your CV together and finding positions to apply for, that it’s a real shame that candidates let themselves down by using “text speak”. Sending a recruiter or hiring manager a message such as say,

“@3. TA4N. CU”. To you, this might say “At 3pm (so perhaps confirming an interview time). That’s all for now. See you”.

To me, it says, “can’t be bothered to type a coherent sentence and I wonder how they would interact via email and the like with clients on site?”

“Text speak” has not evolved so far as to be appropriate for business use – save it for your friends and show potential employers that you can communicate appropriately – telling me to “Bgr off” does not count… :-)

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