ill communication

My Ocean beeped at me, announcing the arrival of a text message from my younger son, Nolan.

I opened it up and read, “mom will b gon ur goin 2 din thing rite but 5 is fine then k.”

I turned the phone around in my hands, and wondered if maybe I some packets had been dropped during transmission. This cryptic message had been sent in response to my message, “I need to pick you up at five so I can make it to my dinner on time, okay?”

I looked at the phone’s display again, and headed to the cryptography section of my bookshelf. Maybe he’d been captured by ninjas or something, and was sending me a coded message!

While I looked, another message arrived. “wen u get me can u tak me and danny 2 john house 2 do hw plz 4 skool”

"Jesus Christ," I thought, this is serious. "I’d better crack this code before he gets hurt!"

Several frustrating minutes later, I gave up, and just called him.

“Nolan,” I said, “is everything alright? You’re texting in tongues.”

He laughed. “Yes, I’m fine. Did you really not understand me?”

“I never understand you damn kids today, but . . . yeah. You have to remember that --”

“That you’re old. Okay, I get it. Can you take us to Danny’s after you pick me up, so I can do my homework?”

“Why didn’t you just say that?” I said.

“Wil.” He said, patiently. “I did."

Comments

[Russty]

I was going to laugh and say you are getting old. But sadly I had to read his messages a few times to understand them myself. LOL Gosh, now I feel old! Thankfully my oldest doesn't have a cellphone yet. Its hard enough to understand when she is telling me about her day. I'm still trying to figure out what, "Oh Snaps!" really means.

[GeekessDaisy]

Behold the 'joys' of texting. I swear with all the computer jargon going on people will never type 'you' 'your' and several other words again. Shame.

[Melia]

You can call your kids at school?? Lucky. Here in Nebraska (and when I say 'here in Nebraska' I really mean 'at my daughter's high school in Grand Island.' I don't know about the rest of the state) they will confiscate your phone if they see you on it, and you have to pay a fine to get it back.

[Sally J]

In order to keep my street cred, I'd consult The Wiki in secret. Srsly.

[Wil]

Melia: I talked to him after school. I'm not sure what his school's policy is on that sort of thing, but I'd support a "phones off during class" policy, for sure.

[LucidApathy]

I understood the second text completely... the first one I read five or six times and still have no clue what he said.

[Tim]

Ha! I can't imagine what kind of code will exist when my son hits that age.

Damn kids will probably be texting in binary.

[John]

It's not age. I'm older than you, but understood the 2nd msg with absolute clarity the first read through.

"When you get me can you take me and danny to john's house to do homework please for school”

The 1st msg was a little more confusing, but it was still readable.

"Mom will be gone. You're going to dinner thing right? But 5 is fine then, Ok.”

[Marley2112]

WTF UDK wot he sez? ROFL kthxby

[Melia]

Wil: Ohhhh. Well yes, phones off during class, of course. I'm on board that train. I guess I thought you meant you rang him up during school. ...
i msundrstud u.

[Jeff D]

Will, by the time you crack the code it will be obsolete. It's probably not worth the effort.

I just picked up a Helio Ocean the other day. Very nice mobile device. I haven't yet started to look into applications or games yet though, I'm curious to see what will develop.

[longklaw]

My roommate has an Ocean and I am jealous.

[foufymaus]

hey wil, i totally get what he said. Although im pushing thirty, i have friends that range from 18-38 and im surrounded by college aged kids all day. so far i haven't had to deal with that 'age gap' thing. ;) But when it does, I just blame MTV like all the old folks do and everything will be all right.

[Soo]

Thank you for such a great belly laugh! I'm your age, with two teen geeksters of different genres (one is into anime, the other is all DnD and WoW). When the geek gets flying, we barely understand each other. Throw txt into the mix, and we're doomed!

[starshine_diva]

Ok, I'm not old and I do a lot of texting...

But that first one? I had to re-read it 2 or 3 times and I think I finally got it.

The second one was a breeze.
Still, I love my phone because it has something called FASTAP, which is basically an alphabet keyboard between the number keys.
I am never going back to pressing a button 3 times to get the letter I want.
Next stop... Blackberry!

[Darth Paradox]

Is it unusual that I actually go out of my way to text-message in complete words and sentences, including proper capitalization and punctuation?

I don't enjoy looking like I received blunt trauma to the language center in my brain.

[Amber J]

TXT speek is the new 1337 speek is the new script kiddie speek. And I can't stand it. I too am one of those people that will send a perfectly crafted text with punctuation and grammar used properly. It drives me up the wall, especially when its one from my boss who is an editor, that has letters missing, or words like "gonna" or "wanna". What took the cake though was when my mom started IMing me more often and started using "lol"...

[paige]

thank god i don't talk like that, and i hate it when other people do.

[alikitty619]

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who sends out 'proper' texts.

And I guess I'm old too, because textspeak drives me freakin' crazy!!

It's mostly the young ones who text it to me. I just send them one back that says "Once again, in English." If they don't, then I ignore the request. It's a bit childish and stupid, but so is textspeak.

[alikitty619]

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who sends out 'proper' texts.

And I guess I'm old too, because textspeak drives me freakin' crazy!!

It's mostly the young ones who text it to me. I just send them one back that says "Once again, in English." If they don't, then I ignore the request. It's a bit childish and stupid, but so is textspeak.

[Tymme]

A good 10-second example of the decline of Western civilization.

It's not new; it's only gotten worse as time goes on. I wasn't impressed with it years ago, much less now, though I could decipher the idea behind both messages.

If my kid ever sent a text like that, he/she'd lose phone (or at least messaging) privileges.

[jadeddo]

The lack of proper English is annoying, but at least he said please (or plz)

[Rikki]

My daughter is so used to texting, that she is almost like that commercial. You know the one.
The other day, she said"OMG, mom, LOL."
Yes, she actually said the letters, O-M-G, L-O-L"
I laughed so hard, I think I peed a little.

[theslate]

Damn kids need to learn to use T9, and to get off my lawn.

[MrSpock]

Add me to the "I hate textspeak" Team. I'm not sure it has only to do with age, although I will admit to be old enough to remember when cell phones didn't exist. I guess I put a lot of energy to learn English as a second language, I just hate to see it butchered like that.

On a totally different but related topic, I got this (old but always fascinating) email the other day. Let's see if most of you can read this better than textspeak:

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid: Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are , the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.