OMG! I "heart" U! LOL!

I was in a meeting this morning when I noticed this message written on a flipchart in the corner of the room. (For those of you who may appreciate a translation...“Oh my God! I Love You! Laugh Out Loud!). I found myself coming back to this message several times throughout the meeting and wondering who had written it and why they had written it in this very sterile, corporate conference room, and why did they write it in text language. Is there an office romance brewing somewhere that I’m not aware of? Did someone do a really amazing job on a project and their boss was just “feeling the love”? Did someone put it there anonymously intended for anyone who happened to need a day brightener? As I wondered about the author and about the purpose of the message, and more specifically, the format of the message itself, I considered how much text messaging language has impacted our lives.

Now, since I consider myself to be so knowledgable about ancient communications methods (ok...not so much), I can share with you my theory that today's texting language shares some similarities with hieroglyphics of Egyptian times. Hieroglyphics were also a “formal writing system combining logographic and alphabetic elements”.  (Thank you, Wikipedia – I don’t actually just know that kind of information off the top of my head.)  This style of writing, which is remarkably similar to texting language,  essentially included three different kinds of characters – those that represented alphabetic letters, those that represented full words, and those that were sort of descriptors for the other characters.  As writing expanded, the system became even more simplified to accommodate a larger audience of people (sound familiar?). Further, according to Wikipedia, “Visually hieroglyphs are all more or less figurative: they represent real or illusional elements, sometimes stylized and simplified, but all generally perfectly recognizable in form." (Again, sounds like texting to me.)


Ok, enough of the textbook language – using big words trying to make a simple concept sound more complicated than it really is. Here is the most important similarity between the two languages, they both succeed at taking a larger concept and breaking it down to its simplest form in order to tell someone something.

So as I sat in this meeting contemplating office romances, random acts of kindness, and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, I thought about how we frequently communicate in text language – beyond just the quick messages we key into our phones. “OMG’, “LOL”, and “WTF” have become part of our language – we speak those “words” to others so that they will immediately know, in a very quick fashion, what we are thinking or feeling. You may have read articles and studies about how writing, grammar, spelling and  punctuation are all suffering in the digital age as children no longer realize some words have full spellings. In fact, high school students are turning in term papers utilizing text language. While I would certainly never advocate that (I believe it is important that our children be able to communicate to the highest level possible as opposed to the lowest denominator), I have to admit that I also see some value in that kind of communication. Because it is quick, because it is easy, and because it is occasionally “cute”, it tends to feel less formal and maybe even a little less scary for those who are less confident about their writing. Therefore, maybe they are encouraged to communicate with those around them more frequently, in ways that before text language, they didn’t necessarily feel comfortable. And personally, I see that as a huge benefit to using text language. Anything that gets people talking – whatever form it takes – is good communication.

Texting will not be going away, at least not anytime that I can foresee in the near future. In fact, it will likely just continue to evolve meaning that someday many generations from now, some archaeologist may discover our cryptic text messages from 2012 and will wonder about who wrote them, who they were intended for, and what the message really meant. In the meantime, we continue to text and to incorporate text language into our daily lives and I’m OK with that.

After all, if someone wants to tell me that they love me, I don’t really care if they spell it out in layers of prose or if they simply text it with an “I 'heart' U”.  I get the message…and that’s what counts.