Txt spik

Call me old-fashioned, but I'm the type who likes to type sms with the words all spelled out. Yes, occasionally, I abbreviate -- "you" to "u," "tomorrow" to "tom," and even the days of the week -- but that's only when my message threatens to exceed one page. But I consider these abbreviations still falling within the confines of proper English or Tagalog grammar.

Other texters, however, seem to be getting out of hand.

There's that ubiquitous peeve of mine-- "me," which people use in place of "ako." As in "Dito na me." "Kain na me." Argh.

And then there are those abbreviations which I thought I already got the hang of, but seem to continuously evolve into the incomprehensible, not to mention ridiculous.

Examples:

"Sige" used to be "cge." Now it's "geh."

"Anyway" used to be "nyway." A few days ago, I received a message that had "nwe," and I had to spend a few seconds reading the entire message over and over again before I understood what it stood for. I kept pronouncing it as "now-eh."

"Kasi" --> "kc" --> "xe."

"Ako" --> "me" --> "aq."

"Siya" --> "sya" --> "sia."

The "sia" I find particularly annoying. It's just one friggin' letter changed; why even bother? Is it because the "y" keypad is further than the "i"?!

What's even doubly annoying is if people type these shortcuts even though the message is only a few words long. "Geh, alis n aq. Tnx." Exactly what do these people do with the few precious seconds they save by not typing the whole thing?