Deciphering Texting (aka "Lingo")*

Folks– obligations require a re-posting today.

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 “ttyl”. It didn’t help that I wasn’t a “text-er” myself (Use a cell phone 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. When I was a lad, my friends and I had used code too.

Fortunately, there are resources available for those of us who are lingo-challenged. 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 learn, and 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 of these online dictionaries is Lingo2Word. With it, you can paste in text, and have it automatically deciphered for you.

Related link: Lingo2Word. “Lingo2word is devoted to demystifying 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 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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