Were you able to read the statement above? At this point you might be asking, “a statement?” Well yes, it is a statement and not merely a senseless combination of letters and a number. FYI (for your information), these group of letters and the number “8″ actually stands for or can be translated as “By the way, see you later. Hugs and kisses!”

With the coming of technological advancements in communication, particularly SMS or text messaging, a new lingo as well came into existence– text messaging lingo. Generally, this new lingo is characterized by abbreviations, mispelled words, shortened words and sentences, as well as numerous emoticons expressing various feelings or emotions.

Text messaging lingo is used in sending SMS or text messages in order to save time as well as characters. By using text messaging lingo, time is saved given that you no longer need to type whole words and long sentences. And why save characters? This is because early cellphone units which had text messaging or SMS sending features, used to limit the number of characeters used per message.

At present, there are already new cellphone units which allow more characters to be used per message. However, most people using text messaging as a means of communication still abbreviate words and sentences. Perhaps this is because of the fact that text messaging lingo has already become a culture in terms of text messaging or SMS messaging.

Given that it is difficult to discern the feelings expressed by a particular text message, text messaging lingo as well found a unique way of presenting emotions or feelings. Regardless if its happiness, sadness or embarassment, there are “emoticons” which serve as representations to various feelings. Emoticons are created through combinations of text characters as well as some alphabetical and numeric characters.

However, many parents, employers and teachers do not agree with the use of text messaging lingo since it encourages misuse of the English language. It is therefore important that if ever you will be using text messaging lingo, use it responsibly and accordingly.