Text messaging and the shortening of words. Do you think it all started with an Ampersand?

Question

Anyone who does not need a dictionary please answer.

Answer 1

No. I think that with the growth of technology folks started shortening words to make it easier to type on small phones and when communicating by instant messaging they needed to type faster and began to shorten things. Plus, typing isn't taught in schools anymore (at least not that I know of). So more and more people "chicken peck" as they used to call it. Why bothering to find all the letters needed to type a word if one or two letters will convey the same message?

Sad isn't it? In this case could you argue that technology isn't helping us progress but causing us to regress? And do you think young folks will worry less about proper spelling if they can get away with writing the same message in less letters/words? Everyone knows about spell check these days. Granted, not everyone uses it (and more probably should). Of course, if the word is spelled right but used improperly the simple spell check won't catch it. Are we a society now dependent on spell check and being able to read "text" lingo??

Answer 2

Ampersand has been around a lot longer than that!
Texting slang is a combination of laziness, illiteracy and that fact that each key has 3 or 4 letters making it a slow process (before that clever predictive text thing).

Answer 3

Signs/symbols have been used for complete words throughout history, the ampersand being only one example.

Answer 4

Yep= I know that it did! Ampersands been around for a long long time

Answer 5

Probably, there is nothing wrong with shortening, it is the spelling mistakes that are annoying, and indicative of the schooling today.

Answer 6

O I C U R 2 B Z 2 C~ I NV U!

Answer 7

doh, wats AMP..sand ?