We all know that SMSs are limited to 160 characters per message. Anything exceeding your quota per month means an additional 5c per message. That unit price may seem negligible but trust me, you wouldn't know how much you've bled till you are dry.
I have a close friend who SMSed alot when he was living on his own. His first bill came & he almost choked on his own saliva when he saw the charges for his SMS. A whopping $130, & that is excluding his monthly subscription & talktime charges. $130 worth of SMS equals to more than 2500 SMSs in a single month. That is like slightly more than 80 SMSs per day! WTF?!?!
160 characters at times seems really limited & incapable of expressing your thoughts in 1 single SMS (if you abide strictly to proper english that is). But needless to say & history has proven wise that whenever we encounter a difficulty, we will always find a way around it.
If you have taken a look at your SMS lately, especially from young kids, you'll find unexplained symbols, characters and spliced up words. This is the latest form of l33t speak or should I say SMS speak.
Let me just list a few examples to update the ignorant ones while you
AFAIK - as far as I know
AFAIR - as far as I recall
BION - believe it or not
BTDT - been there, done that
CWYL - chat with you later
HUH - have you heard?
ICCL - I couldn't care less
in4ml - informal
KISS - keep it short & simple
KUTGW - keep up the good work
XLNT - excellent
NAGI - not a good idea
ONNA - oh no, not again
SWAK - sealed with a kiss
And the list goes on & on. I'm pretty damn sure there's a whole lot more unknown to me. Maybe network providers should compile a list of SMS speak & distribute it out to the general public. Yeah, dream on. I thought so too.
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak -- Hans Hofmann
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