S.M.S. lingo

Another of the Srijna articles. I have had people come and say the magazine is absolutely amazing. Will try to upload a pdf someday. Enjoy

S.M.S. lingo

160 characters can feel like a lifetime. Especially when keyboard is a ten digit number pad. Yes, the 160 characters is nothing more than the length of an S.M.S.(short messaging service).

Historically the earliest S.M.S. service was just added as a side kick to the first mobile phones. Many manufacturers left them out. Guess the never knew, that one day how indispensable it would become.

Despite its shortness the S.M.S. service has spawned its own lingo which has made their entry into everyone's everyday dictionary. And a whole new debate has taken birth. Because 160 words and a rather tough keypad ensures that the average S.M.S. user is a great gobbler of character hungrily devouring poor alphabets. And student go back and use the language in their papers. Is it right?

I do not know because its tough to judge. I simply do not get it at this. Like “tc”. For a long time I thought tc meant turbo C and i used to think “oh! Sak*** (name changed to protect identity on request. P.S. Please guess) must really like C language.” Of course having a premonition that i was walking to a fool's paradise I fished around for answers. I guardedly asked my good-friend Varun as to what Tc would mean in a sms and pat came the reply 'Turbo C yaar' . True Compies to the blood I guess. Anyway two is always better than one on a journey to inevitable embarrassment.

It was only much later that I realised Tc meant take care, but the joke stayed.

I think S.M.S. lingo is like compression algorithm. The optimal the algorithm, the tougher is the message to decode. Someone i know writes S.M.S.'s which I have to read at least thrice to figure out.I for one am very poor at such stuff. My S.M.S.'s for the good or the bad are long drawn out affairs stretching to three even four S.M.S. lengths. In retrospection I think it has more to do with the thing that I am hopelessly addicted to long eloquent sentences I can never shorten a word especially not so common ones as I always fear the reciever might misunderstand. But still I could try.

Btw i 4got 2 mentn dat smss cud b adictiv. I dnt kno if u wud aprciate dis but es fun.I herd 1 S.M.S. contst is goin to b hld. Wndr e I cud mk da cut...

Thot i wud brb bt 2 mch hs bin riten.

G2g,cya n Tc++. ;)