Tue 8 Apr 2008
snd reinfrcmnts: cmpny going 2 advnce
Posted by anaglyph under Annunciation, Blogs I Like:, Geek, Punctuation, Words
[66] Comments
I’ve been lurking over at Reasons You Will Hate Me for a bit these last couple of weeks. Ms Fits, who is the proprietor, is funny I think, and can spell and use punctuation, which does make for a more readable experience than many.
Unlike myself, Ms Fits is famous in the blogging world. My observations of RYWHM suggest that this has advantages and disadvantages:
Advantage: Lots of people read and comment.
Disadvantage: Lots of stupid people read and comment.
But I digress from the point of this post. Her recent post on bad texting in the face of calamity is amusing. It refers to this story about a ‘school machete rampage*’ in which five youths went on a spree through a Sydney highschool wielding baseball bats, swords, machetes and other sporting equipment.
Ms Fits tells us that she feels that a text message sent to the outside world even under such duress should be spelled correctly (in contrast to the one that the newspaper intercepted), and it will come as no surprise to you, dear Acowlytes, to hear that I agree with her on this matter. She then proposes that the predictive texting on phones should be updated to include abbreviated messages that can be sent quickly in times of peril. She gives an example, viz:
SND HLP GNMN/OMG BMB/TWN TWRS :(
This got me to thinking. In the great moments of our past, what would the shapers of human history have texted, if the technology had been available? I have offered you one such example here on The Cow.
Keep your suggestions short. You get charged more after 160 characters.
(Extra points if you show off yr mad Photoshopping skilz).
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*There’s another one o’ them thar Zombie Words.
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Hndnbrg xplod o th humnty
… and the hurdle is set high, straight out of the starting gate!
“baseball bats, swords, machetes and other sporting equipment”
Sporting equipment? This was one tough school!
What comprised the “other sporting equipment”? Brass knuckles? Nunchucks? AKs?
=^0 th hmnty! as the Hindenberg reporter might have texted.
in other news:
U C ICBRG?
>>Sporting equipment? This was one tough school!
That is called humour, JR. Sometimes I use it on The Cow, although why for the life of me I bother I sometimes wonder.
I was taking you seriously? Rev, I’m disappointed to be so misunderestimated. But it read like classic journalese sentence mangling, so I thought I’d run with it.
Prl Hrbr – 0s inbnd!
I thought that was the case JR, and I am never one to underestimate the capacity of the ‘news’ media to commit a bit of language manglin’
As for the txt – superb!
wheelng us in 2 troy now. dont think they hv clue lol!
sup postls? meet u at Cross l8r, k?
OMG Y HV U 4SKN ME?
fssan [kdmfmg kmdsag
I can play too
Hitler’s text message.
LT THM EAT CK!
luke im yr dad
cya
MR WTSN – CME HERE – I WNT 2CU
th drnk ws poisnd, mum x
Helen Keller:
IRAQ HAS WMDS. MISSN ACMPLSHD. JK ROFL.
MONICA BJ ASAP BILL
1 sml stp 4 man
im gng out may b sumtime :(
the redcts r cmng! the redcts r cmng!
This is so entirely funny that I’m letting it run a bit. Joey, your OMG is fantastic and Cow Medal Worthy. King Willy, the sad face is pure genius. Atlas scores with Hellen Keller and Malach is just plain not trying. Pil: we have to ask the question – would he have have dropped the ‘a’ if the message had been sent as a txt? (and the pic was lol). Cissy Strutt: the hndnbrg was better…
From the Donner Party (for Joey):
snwd in here. all ok but gettng hungry.
(It seems obvious though that the best ones are the ones that need no extra explanation – that is, the sender and the circumstances are obvious from the content).
srry fr the wrdrobe mlfnctn (*)
BBWOLF BLOWS LK A BTCH – SND BRICK
R U OK, JFK?
PLS EVE, 1 BITE -WHT CLD IT HRT?
FRNKLY MY DEAR I DNT GIV A DAMN
HEY JUDAS. DNNR @ MY PLACE. BYOB. UR PAL, J
ROMEO where4RU
ANT EM- OFF 2C WZRD
ABE- CAN U C PLAY 2NIGHT?
U 2, BRUTUS?
HAL OPN POD BAY DORS
U CN CHK OUT NE TIME U LIKE U CN NVR LVE
SRRY? FU!
JH
PLS IGNOR LST TXT
JH
BUGGR
JH
ROME BRNS – TLK L8R – FIDDLG
IN NOD/MARKD BY GOD/FOUND GRL 2 MRRY/NO CLU
MY DICK IS IN JAR. IDIOTS STILL WRTNG POEMS ABOUT IT.
LOST. DO U NO TH WAY 2 SAN JOSE? D.
GIV ME LBRTY OR GIV ME DTH
20 gal koolaid in frg – drink up – kthxbye Jim
You’re all genii! Especially Joey.
HAV THRY, NEED COMB. E=MC2
spnfl of sgr hlps the mdcne go dn in most dltfl way.
Met Indn grl named Scgwea 2day. Seems cool. Lewis still asshole.
TAKG TOUR/SS MINNO/BAK IN 3 HR
I THOT THEY 8 CAKE -MARIE
E=MC2 – EXPLN L8R
SHOT BY VP/4GET DINNR
lvngstne, k?
Mr Gorbchv tear dwn ths wll.
FRM HLS <3 I STAB @ U / 4 H8S SAK I SPIT LAS BRETH @ U
Plz wont u b my nbr?
I thougt I done awready rung th Cow bell, Revrend. You said so yerself.
I just aint made th list yet.
Sorry Joey. Looks like Akismet ate it. Just fyi, Akismet treats messages with 3 links or more as spam. I can change that (I tried 4 links) but it results in about a quadrupling of spam for some reason. What’s really annoying about Akismet is there doesn’t seem to be a way of white-listing commenters. I’ve written them about it but apparently it’s not that easy to do…
Akismet is slowly getting better though – now a few people who it previously recognized as spammers are let through OK. And it has a lot fewere false positives.
For anyone else who’s reading – if you think a comment gets snagged, email me or post a ‘WTF?’ comment and I’ll reinstate it – when I do that, Akismet recognizes the sender and ratifies them (mostly always – Joey should already be ratified).
Yeah, I shouda mentiond it earlyer but, since I knew what had happmd, I thougt you might find it and “clear it” for publickation. I jus forgot about it until I revisitd this post somtime latr. Far too late fer you to snatch it bfore th net got emptyd.
Anyhow, th substance o that comment was that this litttle exrcise here was DANGD fun — fun because HARDLY easy to do especially well. Very much like creatin new adages by substituting ‘cow’ for anothr animal-name. In this texting exrcise, as you poinnid out, its funnyer if you dont hafta mention th textr or th recipient — just th message. But, while there can (and oftn IS) humor just in th textifyin of a classick line, there is also sompm funny about somone texting whilst in th midst o some momentous historickle event / undrtaking; and sompm evn funnyer about reportin such an event / undrtakin while at th same time tryin to keep it SHORT. Heck, theres evn sompm funny about th fact that momentous or wondrful or horrifick things might be passd on wit th kind of “Oh, by th way …” aspect that is so oftn charactristick of modern communickation.
Yeah, Revrend … finding th humor that is kind of DIFFUSED thruout some feature of CONTEXT is so dangd challenging.
By th by, ol fella … Atlas done blowd th whistle on ya …
… givin away a Cow Medallion fer shtick NOT done ovr at th Cow — against yer own regulation, artickulatd HEREski!
So, then …
WHO was th firs prson to win TWO Cow Medallions?
Say my name, bitch! Say my name!
Oh, I see – awake from the Thousand Year Sleep are we?
Yeah. And Im dangd crabby!
Hey, Revrend … I jus tryd puttin my Moo Medal in my sidebar & aint had much luck yet. Blogger now has a kind o “EZ” method o addin stuff to sidebar — as well as plain ol template-tinkerin. But I managd to add (th EZ way) a similr kind o buttn linkin to OFaL, and was wondring if you had any advice on how to get th Cow code to werk. If ya do, feel free to drop it anywhere ovr at th Hole.
Thanks fer th help, Revrend.
I jus wish th link still took fokes to th Roll o Honour page.
I mean, how am I spposta boast modestly if I cant lead fokes to stumble upon my great deed … yknow … accidently?
Thanks again, Rev. I coud KISS you!
Now … dont th placement o th Pacifick Ocean look like proof of a benevolent cosmick creator?
A persuasive argument for Divine Providence.
Someone kinda stole your idea here; but, o’course, our gang is WAY funnier!
I would never allow jokes that lame to appear on The Cow.