Laughing at the present/Thinking about the future
Text talking
We live in a narrow age. Screens, education, squeaks, minds - all are narrow. Even the margin rule of this webpage is narrowed in order to accommodate Blackberries, Sidekicks, 3G mobiles - and an article of somewhat thin content.
In turn, Repetitive Text Syndrome sprains thumbs, shortens words and takes out all those archaic points of punctuation standing in the way of streamlined language. Whereas years ago, small-ad size restrictions in the newspapers created h&c, b&b, gsoh, tel, fsh and 4bed2bathsemi gd schls, even smaller phone restrictions have brought us tx, 2, u, and txt. At this rate, by 2024 every word in the language will be either a letter or a number. In fact, I have it on good authority that this is now an official Government target. Less is more. Forward not back.
All across the nation, hundreds of people (only 38% of whom are librarians) send irate letters to The Daily Telegraph. These complain that the language of Shakespeare is becoming the Bill's rap - and at the end, the editor writes ''this letter has been edited due to limited space'.
As if adjusting to alleyway writing, however, critics of text English suffer themselves from the cataracts of narrowed perspective. They witter on about the written word, when the real change has crept into our lives unnoticed.
I refer, of course, to Received Text: the Quns Engsh lke wosheznar spke.
I first noticed the insidious word-meld of Received Text (RT) last year, when a taxi driver present at the syrupy Blair No 10 People's Interviewon telly asserted that in tdys multkultsighty, racismsa dibolkl libtee anitgotstop. Ever since, I've been on the lookout for further examples. I can now report that the trend is ubiquitous, and sdoin me ydin.
To make things worse, the obsession of politics and business with acronyms helps more words to fit on a screen, but not comprehension of what on Earth's being said on the street. Only a month ago, a client told me that the FSA's jussa jokinnit. Last weekend another young friend observed how 'p2pshdtv fciltee stonshin' and that saulbout portbul dijtul. I still have no idea whether dijtul jussajok, but I shfink saulbout speck.
Things reached some kind of anarchic verbal zenith the last time I was in the capital. "S'GLR 4knarywofe anen novan awotloo" explained the guard at an East End station where viol mayntnce had dumped me - as opposed to Liverpool Street as advertised. As we both stood there, him smiling as if dealing with a C-stream chimp, I wondered how Londoners had adopted a completely new language without me hearing about it. It was, like, sewnfare.
The late, great Ronnie Barker cannot have realised that, in his famous 1970s sketch, he was decades ahead of his time. 'F u n e m?" asked Corbett. "S I f m", Barker responds. "U 1 m?' But equally, another celebrated Two Ronnies sketch (set in a hardware shop) shows the flaw in our contemporary trend towards abbreviation. "Four candles" requests customer Corbett, so Barker brings him fork handles.
This is a text I received from my pc genius repair man in the Spring:
'U need ISP 2 chek band then U 2 line-up 4tops. SOA wrong?'
For those educated using a twenty-six letter alphabet, this was all about optimal bandwidth on telephone lines and service orientated architecture. For we cutting-edge hip-hop Third Age surfers, the written version is perfectly understandable. The question nobody's addressed yet, however, is how the fntiks gon work once this sort of stuff becomes the grist of spoken English. It could, for instance, be pronounced thus:
'You need Ispatooczech Band then U2 line-up. Four Tops, soooo wrong".
Having asked for the solution to an emailing problem, one seems instead to get lesson one in How to be a Rock Concert Promoter. And for me, the surreality of this would be tinged with anxiety: 'I like to think I'm still cool, but I've never fucking heard of the Ispatooczech Band'.
But the traffic of written and spoken language is, of course, a two way street. As I averred at the outset, once we start conversing in text - and because the human being on a mobile simply cannot stop talking and texting - abbreviated speech will have to be chopped further - in order to be able to text faster, say more and thus - for anyone under twenty years old - never lose contact with the pack again, ever. Which I've always suspected is why mobile telephony has conquered the world.
Anyway, at last I have a good steer on where we're going. Come with me now to a text in 2025 (by which time every Government target will at last have been missed) and see how Todayspeak has been turned into txtspk. In 2007, it would go like this - F1 to F2:
F1: Wanna go shoeshopping?
F2: U go ahead - busy buying shoes!
But a mere eighteen years from now, on the screen will be:
F1: Wanshoos?
F2: Ug. Shoos!
And for the chaps too, minimal language will only thinly disguise their eternal interests. Thus, today:
M1: See you at game?
M2: U bet.Will hunt out.
And in 2025:
M1: See game?
M2: Ub. Hunt.
This will complete the vicious circle from which our species will never escape. And as Dolphins can't hold phones, it'll be their turn next
Sorite. Avnalarfinni?
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