Text Messaging Lingo– Help!
Folks– business obligations require a reposting today, but I did have time to update it.
I have an embarrassing confession to make–I don’t always know how to translate what someone has text-ed into English. I need a Text-to-English dictionary. This is just one more fact, added to an already long list of facts, that tells me I’ve gotten ‘old’. We didn’t 
have ‘texting’ when I was a teenager.
At first, I thought texting (aka “lingo”) was simply X-treme Abbreviation. And then, I thought it might be a combination of Vanity License-plate Language and X-Abbreviation. This thinking allowed me to read some of what I saw, but not all. I could decipher “gr8” and “l8r”, but not “bb4n”. It didn’t help that I wasn’t a “texter” myself (Use a cellphone and give myself ear cancer? Not this fella!).
And then it dawned on me– these kids are using an Adult-proof secret code. They don’t want me to decipher it. The world suddenly made a lot more sense. My friends and I had used code too.
Fortunately, there are resources available for those of us who are “lingo”-handicapped. If you see “A/S/L”, but don’t understand what it means, you can find out (age/sex/location?) — and if you are a parent concerned about your child and what they’re doing and saying on the Internet and in chatrooms — I suggest you do.
If you’re like me, and just want to try to increase your “hipness” quotient (or just avoid some terrible faux pas), you will also find these translation resources useful and interesting. My favorite is below, as the day’s free link.
Samsung has conducted a survey of people who use text messaging, which produced results that state that text messaging is improving relationships between parents and teens. WiredParentPad has an interesting take on this, Do You Use Text Messaging to Stay Connected with Your Teens?
Free link of the day: Lingo2Word. “Lingo2word is devoted to demistifying the new Internet shorthand language of Text messages, Chat rooms and Emails. We are devoted to the fun of text messaging in all forms, there is a whole new fun language out there just waiting for you!”
Copyright © 2007-8 Tech Paul. All rights reserved.
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• About Tech Paul
I am a Retired computer & network technician. I used to think the machines were pretty cool. Now I don’t.
They’re anything but.
I regularly posted how-to’s and tricks & tips and general computing advice here starting in 2007. (Use the Search tool to find answers. But be aware, many are rather dated.) Sometimes I answered (your) specific questions in an article if I believed the answer was generally helpful to “everyone”. All the writing you see was my own, typos and all. There always is/was an implied “IMHO” in what you see here.
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Tech - for Everyone 
here in belgium, we created a little book, the size that can fit in your pocket which explains all abbreviations, guessing abbreviations is like making words and sentences shorter. Anyway i’m surprised they didn’t do that already at your place..uk or USA don’t know ;)
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Thanks for the link, Paul, that’s one I hadn’t run across yet.
What’s interesting is I see more and more adults my age (I’m in my mid 30s) and older using text messaging to stay connected, not only with their kids, but also their friends.
Once a person is fairly efficient at it, it’s a convenient form of communication that has some advantages to it.
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Coration–
Say.. that’s a great idea– a pocket texting dictionary!
I honestly don’t know if such a thing is available here, or if anybody is using one (I haven’t seen it).
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