I Consider Myself Bilingual

I remember the day pretty clearly. I was on my way home from a tennis match when my father called. He informed me that I went over on my phone bill by A LOT because of text messaging. How could this be? Well, I, along with the majority of the population, text message like my life depends on it. That month I was allowed 500 text messages. I sent about 2,000.

Some may wonder why. Some may understand fully. I can't speak for everyone but I know exactly why I text. Is it because I get to push buttons? That's fun for everyone. Is it because I can have a conversation while I'm in the shower? Is it because I can be having a completely secret conversation that no one in the entire world gets to know about? Yes, but its mostly because I don't have to talk to the person directly. Phone conversations can be incredibly awkward. You know you have taken your relationship to the highest level with someone when the awkward silence on the phone is no longer awkward. I can honestly say that I can only have a productive and comfortable conversation on the phone with family and two of my closest friends. As for the rest of the contacts in my phone, I prefer to be completely distant, impersonal, and unemotional.

Now, just as one learns Spanish, French, or what have you, text message language must be learned over time. This language is filled with acronyms, misspellings, shortening of words, and absolutely no punctuation whatsoever. Some examples of these acronyms would include "idk" meaning I don't know, or "lol" meaning the person just laughed out loud. Misspellings are very important to learn. If you aren't familiar with the more complicated ones then the meaning of the message can be lost, rendering you lost as well. Some more common include "u", obviously meaning you. My favorite is "gunna." "Gunna" is a tricky word because you may find yourself writing "gunna" everywhere. "U" is caught right away whereas "gunna" looks almost normal, so watch out! My specialty is shortening words. "Tho", "tom", and "b4" are some popular examples.

Unfortunately, this language can encroach upon proper English and really mess some people up. I was a victim of this senior year of high school. I accidentally wrote "gunna" in a rough draft of the biggest paper of the year. Luckily, my teacher thought it was humorous and just told me to never let it happen again. A word of advice to all, double check for text English when you're writing something formal, or informal for that matter. Save the skill of this complicated and fascinating language for the cell phone.