They are a multi-colored and multicultural race that moves through the streets of the United States with their heads down and their eyes fixed on the electronic devices in their hands. Your fingers move with the speed of light over the tiny buttons of the cell phone to send encrypted messages to any VBF, or to the NE1 whose handheld or laptop will accept your transmissions.
You might see them doing their overriding click, click, click under a table in restaurants, during religious services, in classrooms, at the mall, or while driving a car. Some even click, click while lying in bed making love.
They are ubiquitous. They are changing the way we communicate with each other.
They are the Textatoids, an emerging Humanoid-Android mutation that converse with each other and the world around them in texts of 140 to 160 characters. The conversation they participate in, the written communication they use is Text Speak.
Text Speak is the emerging textatoid dialect by which the speaker can convey extended thought by abbreviating open. Text Speak uses substitute letters, numbers, and characters for complete sentences in English.
It is the incessant march of those who send text messages, the vandals of the SMS (Short Message Service) who are doing to our language what Atilla the Hun did to his neighbors fifteen hundred years ago.
My wife and daughter have been bitten by the Textatoids. Each suffers from the Textiditis disease.
This very morning my twelve-year-old daughter Denise moved into our kitchen in a catatonic state. His fingers slid over the keyboard of the smartphone I bought here for Christmas as he muttered this unintelligible gibberish:
“My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we use 2go2 NY 2C my brother, his GF & thr 3: – @ kids FTF. ILNY, it’s a gr8 plc.”
My wife Annie used to be a Stepford wife. Annie has been transformed into a Textatoid. He has a cell phone sticking out of his right ear. Annie translated my daughter’s text gibberish for me.
“What Denise said, Ron, is that her summer vacation was a complete waste of time. Before, we used to go to New York to see my brother, his girlfriend, and their three children screaming face to face. She loves New York. . It’s a big square. “
Why couldn’t Denise have said that in plain language?
Denise and the Textatoids are destroying the King’s English: They are looting the King’s score! They are attacking the King’s sentences! Violating their vocabulary!
We must end the Textatoids!
Turns out, it’s not just modern youth who don’t bother to spell their words correctly in communications. Lazy Victorian poets used textual language more than 100 years ago. 4 reais!
At a recent exhibition on the history of the English language in London, the British Library featured excerpts of poetry from around the 1860s. Much of the poetry text features a style of abbreviations similar to those we enter on touchscreens and touch screens. instant messaging windows.
Below is an example of a Victorian text from the poem “Rehearsal to Miss Catherine Jay.”
He says he loves UsXS,
Virtuous UR and Y’s,
In XLNCULXL,
All others in their selves.
OMG! Is a dead Victorian poet channeling through my son?
The United Nations (UN) recently reported that the invasion of Textatoids is spreading across the world. According to the UN, text messaging is the most widely used mobile data service worldwide, with 74 percent of the 2.6 billion mobile phone users worldwide actively sending and receiving text messages.
This new dialect has only one written form. Any attempt to say it out loud is impractical and unusually difficult, even though all the details are words and phrases used in everyday speech.
I tried to learn to speak for myself. I have failed. I cannot grasp the nuances of the language. Unlike using traditional English, with Text Speak, it is impossible to use body language, voice inflection, tone, or eye contact when communicating with others.
OMG!
I have come to hate “texting” because of the distractions it has imposed on my former Stepford wife. On July 4, Annie’s use of her cell phone to “text” Denise with a ‘rooster cub’ message while in bumper traffic caused our 2011 Cadillac to be destroyed.
That pissed me off big time!
Textatoids no longer use their cell phones to talk! They have full conversations through text messages. Were not telephones invented to talk? You want to write messages, that’s what email is for! Do you want to use your cell phone while driving? Penalty fee! Then speak! Don’t send text messages! At least if you talk, you can keep your eyes on the road!
Textatoids like my wife and daughter will be responsible for the death of the conversation as Baby Boomers know it. How do I know this?
Denise used her smartphone to email me asking permission to invite six of her friends to a sleepover.
My four-year-old son, Jeffery, who uses a child form of Pig Latin, translated what I said to Denise.
“Adad edsay oooyea anca avway to artypa”.
“Ooooolca.” Denise said.
On the night of the pajama party, Denise’s friends arrived. They spent the night sitting in a circle on the living room floor. Not a human word was spoken. Instead of using their cell phones to communicate via text messages, the teenage textatoids chose to use their barbaric expressions to send silly texts back and forth.
“ZUP? 420!” said a Textatoid boy.
“Suyf!” said a Textatoid girl.
“U SorG?” asked a Textatoid boy
“URS!” said the Textatoid girl
“UrWOMBAT!” replied a Textatoid boy
“WWJD?” Denise asked.
There you go. The end of the conversation. The end of civilization.
As technology changes, it affects the way we communicate. But basic communication and interpersonal skills shouldn’t be neglected.
Baby Boomers can’t afford to be Luddits. We must find a way to embrace the invasion of the Textatoids while holding on to our core values and skills, such as the ability to write a coherent sentence in English with punctuation and correct subject-verb agreement.
When her sleepover was over, Denise came over and kissed me on the cheek to say thank you.
“143,” Denise said.
My head bowed. I highlighted the palm of my right hand that had been transformed into the shape of a cell phone. The tap fingers of my left hand danced on the keyboard of my cell phone.
“1432.” Said.