In da earli dayz of digital mobile telephony, it wuz devised dat lil chunks of data could b regularly transmitted az test signals from phones 2 towers 2 refresh info. An example of this is da “cell info display” fnctn, which tells u what town or suburb ur in @ ne givn time. Cuz these test signals only get fired thru wen there’s spare capacity in da ntwrk, they effectively cre8 no xtra demand or bottlenex.
LOL, OMG, WTF, BRB, IMHO, SUM1, SXE
It wuz also realised in da 90s dat dere might b a commercial application 4 this test signal, in da form of text msgs btwn users. There wuz an engineering limit of 160 characters in da signal, so dat became da size of a text msg. As it turns out, da bogan is deeply in ❤ wit the SMS. Bcuz da bogan rarely has neting subtle or nuanced 2 say, 160 characters is almost always enuf, unless da bogan in question is a 16 yr old girl who enters her illegible stream of consciousness in2 her keypad for mins @ a time.
2MRW, GTG, PMSL, L8R, GR8, TTYL, WKND
Da othr big ting dat bogans hav gained frm SMS, is SMS speak. Tired of bein told dat it cant spell, the bogan has cr8ed an elabor8 system of space saving remixd xtreme words, dat allow it 2 fit more inane babble in2 160 characters. Bcuz all of da words r wrong, da bogan cn project its aptitude for pl@itude as ‘@itude’. These communiqués cre8 a time-consuming and frustr8ing decryption task 4 ne unfortun8 non-bogan recipients.
AFAIK, NE1, PLZ, ROFL, LMAO, 2NITE
In da same way dat a bogan is prone 2 updating its fb status many times per day 2 broadcast da minutiae of its existence, it can bcome hopelessly hooked on SMS. Many bogans will pump out thousands of msgs per month, wit a total amount of substance comparable 2 a piece of navel lint. Globally, 4.1 trillion SMS msgs were sent in 08, billions of these by and 2 bogans. Da phone companies, meanwhile, harvest hundreds of millions of $z from this compulsion. As mentioned earlier, da telco companies need invest in zero additional infrastructure 2 earn mountains of bogan SMS $z. It’s basically a financial colostomy bag, linking da bogan’s phone & wallet pockets, & transmitting da $z back 2 HQ in a packet of test data of 160 digits or less.
ThEn, ThErE r PrEmIuM SMS SeRvIcEs. OMFG.
*UPDATE – English translation for the non-bogan*
In the early days of digital mobile telephony, it was devised that small chunks of data could be regularly transmitted as test signals from phones to towers to refresh information. An example of this is the “cell info display” function, which tells you what town or suburb you’re in at any given time. Because these test signals only get fired through when there’s spare capacity in the network, they effectively create no extra demand or bottlenecks.
Laugh out loud, Oh my god, What the fuck, Be right back, In my humble opinon, Someone, Sexy
It was also realised in the 1990s that there might be a commercial application for this test signal, in the form of text messages between users. There was an engineering limit of 160 characters in the signal, so that became the size of a text message. As it turns out, the bogan is deeply in love the SMS. Because the bogan rarely has anything subtle or nuanced to say, 160 characters is almost always enough, unless the bogan in question is a 16 year old girl who enters her illegible stream of consciousness into her keypad for minutes at a time.
Tomorrow, Got to go, Pissing myself laughing, Later, Great, Talk to you later, Weekend
The other big thing that bogans have gained from SMS, is SMS speak. Tired of being told that it can’t spell, the bogan has created an elaborate system of space saving remixed x-treme words, that allow it to fit more inane babble into 160 characters. Because all of the words are wrong, the bogan can project its aptitude for platitude as ‘attitude’. These communiqués create a time-consuming and frustrating decryption task for any unfortunate non-bogan recipients.
As far as I know, Anyone, Please, Rolling on the floor laughing, Laughing my arse off, Tonight.
In the same way that a bogan is prone to updating its facebook status many times per day to broadcast the minutiae of its existence, it can become hopelessly hooked on SMS. Many bogans will pump out thousands of messages per month, with a total amount of substance comparable to a piece of navel lint. Globally, 4.1 trillion SMS messages were sent in 2008, billions of these by and to bogans. The phone companies, meanwhile, harvest hundreds of millions of dollars from this compulsion. As mentioned earlier, the telco companies need invest in zero additional infrastructure to earn mountains of bogan SMS bucks. It’s basically a financial colostomy bag, linking the bogan’s phone and wallet pockets, and transmitting the dollars back to HQ in a packet of test data of 160 digits or less.
Then, there are premium SMS services. Oh my fucking god.
Things Bogans Like 
LOL. OMG.
A painful read, but wonderful.
5 stars, chaps.
I’d reply in SMS speak, but I’m useless at it. I’d prefer to make a 10 second call than spend a minute or more struggling with my phone to write a legible message.
yeah very difficult to read that one… makes you realise how ANNOYING it is…
my pet hate is the ‘older generation’ (ie:baby boomers) who attempt to talk in that way (speak and sms) its embarrasing…
OMG LOL WTF? BRB…
Yes, thankyou for the translation, I was beginning to develope a headache by the middle of the first paragraph…it may have been due to my brain shrinking.
What annoys the F*K out of me is that my mother, a retired English teacher, insists on sending me emails littered with txtspk abbrvtns. AAAARRRRRGHGHGHGGHGHGGHGGGG!!!
Fiona, quid solium subluto podice perdis?
spurcius ut fiat, Fiona, merge caput
No Indi I think Fiona drives a Bentley not a Fiat.
Simon you’d be wrong…
Bentley owners don’t drive anything…
Their driver’s drive the car…
They generally sit in the back…
True Loftie, should have said is driven, how is the view from the back seat?
LOL. Like he’d know… *eyeroll*
Fiona, you are a model of discretion. Your secret is safe with me.
Ironic – but on the weekends I ‘moonlight’ as a wedding chauffeur…
and have had the pleasure of sitting in both the front and rear seats of a couple of high class vehicles such as Bentley, Rolls Royce, Aston Martin, etc…
So – my dear Fiona – I do know…
But, I certainly don’t have the pleasure on a daily basis as you would…
(they are very large cars – difficult to park in those parrallel spots on Toorak Rd, though when you’re in a Bentley, you can double park and get the driver to come back and get you once you’re finished at the salon)
I thought only ‘gangstaz’ ride in Bentleys these days (that’s how the roll, excuse the pun)?
LOL. Not.
os et labra tibi lingit, Fiona, catellus:
non miror, merdas si libet esse cani.
LOL. Indi’s discovered Latin epigrams on Google. No match for my higher degree in the Classics, of course.
So, translate for the people.
LOL.
My Trans:
Your little dog licks your mouth and lips, Indi.
I am not surprised. If your dog likes to eat shit.
With one minor edit…
Well done.
How so? I googled that latin phrase and the translation Fiona quoted was the first hit…
LOL. A variation, no doubt. Unlikely to be exactly the same.
Or did you expect me to translate it into something completely different – i.e., wrong?
That translation was not correct
Hmm. Remember this Fiona?
“LOL. The bogan is, however, all too aware of the need to flash their credentials…”
LOL. “All bogans flash their credentials” is not the same as “all people who flash their credentials are bogan.”
I don’t really expect you to understand that, even though it’s a simple concept.
Or alternatively, it is just as likely that there is a little bogan in you. In the absence of other evidence, at this stage either conclusion is serviceable.
You are correct, they are not the same statement.
However, both statements are true.
hahaha, I’m surprised you even understood the TEXT SPEAK Fiona hehe
You really should link this to the entry on personalised number plates.
same theory – fit as much into 6 characters…
(though in WA they must be dumber bogans – they can have up to 10 characters on their plates… making it much easier to get the words in)
LOL. You must be right, I believe Shazza hails from there.
Fiona. Are your language skills so negligible that you dont realise that any word or phrase repeated endlessly quickly becomes redundant and loses any meaning. LOL OFF!
You fed the troll. You lose.
Devastating response
Not intending to be so. Sorry – my original response was a bit terse.
Just pointing out that Fiona is a troll, and she is *actively trying* to get responses like yours. So, she trolls, you bite, she wins, you lose.
The best way to get rid of trolls is to ignore them, but she does seem to have more staying power than most. Look at her comment history over the last 80 something articles to get the picture.
Funny read about all the flame warriors including Trolls.
Very recommended
http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/
Thanks for that – good fun. The Necromancer is definitely my favourite.
kung-fu master is me i am
LOL.
LOL Indeed.
hahahaha
The use of the word “troll” is boganish too 🙂
How so?
Genuinely curious here…
I thought the bogan word for “troll” started with “c” and rhymed with dunce.
An academic I know shudders to have to mark tertiary-level assignments that feature smatterings of accidental text-speak. Habit overcomes knowledge every time, it seems. The response is usually predictable: Only 37 out of 100? WTF!
Shouldn’t exams be over mobile fone nowdays anyway? Much easier for the boge.
Another fleecing of the bogan or more to the point, fleecing of an unfortunate victim, the parents of teenage children.
$49 caps with $10 trillion free text and carrier to carrier calls pfft.
Still costs me about 70$ a month over the cap for the kids.
One thing good for parenting is that a threat to take/suspend/ destroy phone will make teenage child act like a human (for at least 5 minutes).
Submitting an assignment with text-speak should result in automatically being kicked out of uni/tafe/whatever……or at least an automatic fail, 37/100 is pure kindness!
I have seen it in essays far more often than makes me feel comfortable. Even postgraduates are guilty of this. I am not sure if it is a lapse or an error in their drafting process, but either way it results in a savage mark down.
It’s funny you should say this. I received an excellent mark last year for what I thought was a rushed and average-at-best scientific report. I asked my lab demonstrator what gave my work the edge (so I could do it again next time) and he told me that it was because my spelling and grammar were good and I used blocking and punctuation properly. I asked him if it was really that rare (I would have thought those things were expected at uni level) and he replied that sadly, yes, increasingly so. He told me he received submissions containing text speak. I thought he was joking.
Never underestimate students inability to use language Jodie. It is sad but true. I regularly come across essays containing sentences that it is not possible to understand, spelling errors, SMS abbreviations, all sorts of terrible, inexcusable mistakes. Much like your demonstrator, when I find one without such issues I am genuinely surprised. For the record, I have only ever taught at ANU, supposedly our most selective university.
Wow how dumb is that? In a post complaining about inability to use English, I leave out an apostrophe.
James,
Not trying to be a smart arse but why are the students allowed to submit this stuff and have it marked. Shouldn’t it just be handed back to them to re-write proper like.
That would not be fair on the students who put in the effort in the first place Simon. Plus the administration associated with that is a nightmare.
Sorry James, only suggesting the ones who can’t be bothered writing properly get theirs back, to remove text speak etc.
If an essay had text speak littered right throughout, perhaps a resubmit would be appropriate. After all, it is clearly specified that essays must be written in English. It seems I was not clear in what I wrote earlier – when it is encountered, text speak usually only arises once or twice in an essay, and comes across as more of a drafting error than anything else. It is also usually accompanied by many other errors which could be fixed with a basic proofread – which is why I go so harsh on them. I am yet to come across an essay so littered with text speak that a resubmit would be appropriate.
I did make one student resubmit for using words like “sheila” and “bloke”, and for using the word “Abos” about fifteen times though… but that is another story.
Understood, perhaps I overestimated the problem. Good luck.
I actually researched this.
In 2010 the number of text messages sent worldwide is expected to exceed 4 trillion. These brief written messages are now a serious communicative tool, complete with a distinctive language of playful and innovative shorthand. Such widespread use has caused some people to worry that text language will supplant standard written English, especially amongst adolescents. However, I think we should be optimistic of text messaging as it encourages writing in those previously less likely to do so.
Detractors of text language, often cite anecdotal incidents of text language being used in schoolwork. The predominant themes are negative; with descriptions most often concerning the perpetuation of lazy habits first used in text messages. One such detractor, Jacquie Ream—former teacher and author of K.I.S.S.: Keep It Short and Simple (2005)—contends that text messaging is destroying the way adolescents write:
These kids aren’t learning to spell. They’re learning acronyms and shorthand. Text messaging is destroying the written word. Students aren’t writing letters; they’re typing into their cell phones one line at a time. Feelings aren’t communicated with words when you’re texting; emotions are sideways smiley faces. Kids are typing shorthand jargon that isn’t even a complete thought.
Ream also comments that ‘we have a whole generation being raised without communication skills’. This is an unfair assertion as adolescents are actually writing and communicating more than ever. To further this, there is no compelling evidence that suggests texting damages standard written English. In fact, some studies show that adolescents who are proficient in text language achieve higher results in school literacy tests). This is because context is so important in all digital communication. And most adolescents understand text language has a distinct style that should be limited to situational communication. Had they not been aware of this boundary, they would have been less likely to score higher than students less proficient in txt ;-). Language expert Robert Schrag, a communications professor, also supports this argument:
We have always implicitly taught our children different language structures and how they function in different arenas… We use [a different] language structure watching a basketball game than in our place of worship. Most children will understand the difference.
Certainly supports my impression that the students in question do not think it is appropriate to use text speak in essays, but simply mistakenly let them through the proofreading process, if indeed they proofread at all. Had no idea that people had studied this stuff though. Nice post.
I CBF reading that.
FFS.
Jodie,
That truely is sad. Your marks have nothing to do with the quality of the work but merely the quality of the grammar. I weep for Australia’s future. Who needs bogans when mediocrity abounds. At least a bogan can build a house, or pour concrete, or fix the plumbing.
LOL. If not spell “truly”.
Damn, fluffed my exit – truly.
Ah mobile phones, the legal drug of people with more money than sense. How anyone can rack up a mobile bill of hundreds of dollars just texting shazza or Dazza amazes me. And of course paying huge sums of money for ringtones and stupid ‘fun’ applications.
Got to love it when Shazza and Dazza give little Jaxxxun a mobile, get the first bill and run straight to ACA. It’s always the phone companies fault that the first bill is for $10,000 worth of porn.
Maybe it’s just me, but before reading that I always thought that the ❤ symbol was a pair of balls cupping a really pointy cock.
I didn’t get it either.
I thought it looked like a bum so the meaning was to show someone their arse… which made no sense in the context it was used in!
Cherries.
lol wut
My head hurts
Nice one TBL, nice one indeed.
Fiona eat your cock off!
Was tea-bagging covered in #35?
Wow – that came from nowhere…
Can someone please translate the bits in between the paragraphs, I have not got a clue what they say
omigod, i totally understood all of what was said.
I am utter mortified
I must now do a Kurt Cobain
make sure your laces are tied on those CONS…
don’t want to trip over on the shotgun ‘ya know… 😉
no mention of the fact that text speak, or txt spk, is now infultraiting verbal communication, starting it hear the pharases , LOL, OMG, etc used in “real” conversation between people.
I like using “lolz” ironically because it confuses me…why does lol now have a Z on the end of it? haha it makes me laugh…or it makes me lolz, as it were.
The kids use “lulz”. Jesus remixing tXt speak.
Will the dumbing down of the world ever cease?
“lulz” is specifically at someone’s expense, there is a difference between “lulz” and “lolz”.
SMS isn’t as popular as tXt.
I’m still not sure what the z is for?? and what is the U in lulz stand for?…..maybe I should just give up trying to keep up
Jo, google Lulz and you can find out. I have had to google almost all the abbreviations here to have any clue at all.
for pluralizzzzm
I gave up reading after 2 sentences, but it was probably funny and true.
It’s all come a long way since typing ‘BOOBIES’ upside down on your calculator.
Or maybe it hasn’t come very far at all…
It has come some way at least. For example, BOOBIES is passe among the kids now – BOOBLESS is considered far more sophisticated.
Only when you do the full calculations first
Old hat, sir. I was doing the BOOBLESS trick on calculators in 1982.
Is this a test to see how many have a slight boganesque trait coursing through their veins? I deny being able to make any sense of the above entry.Brings the ”Grammar police” trait out in me.
What I find irritating now is that whenever a company (for example: Coca Cola) runs a competition, you now have to text into a draw to be informed that you haven’t won anything. Bring back the good old days when a bottle cap could tell you this instantly. Who wants to spend more even money to enter a competition when the odds are always going to be so astronomically high?
How else would they get your phone number, address, etc?
Plus make money out of your text.
Ha ha ha ha Coca Cola keeping the world in line!
ROFLCOPTOR
What does that stand for?
ROFL is “rolling on floor laughing”.
CPTR or coptor describes the helicoptor propeller like movement as they are rolling on the floor.
I don’t think this one is so much bogan as it is gamer, Gen Y or 1337.
I hate to say this, but is there any chance of getting this post repeated in plain English for those of us who despise text/1337 speak? I know that writing this post in text speak is half (if not all of) the joke, but unfortunately there’s too many sections of it I cannot make heads nor tails of.
Hear, Hear.
LMFAO!!! Diz iz da shiz!!
I’m with you B.S.! Don’t mind an occasional LOL or ROFL,but full sentences give me shooting pains in my head.Please don’t do it again TBL.
Shamefully I could read it…all of it. Back in my younger days as an unrefined youth I used to use text speak religiously. Now though most of my text messages (on the few occasions that I actually send one) are mostly written in proper English except for a few appreciations. My 16 year old cousin sends 100’s of text messages a day. I can’t remember a time when her mobile wasn’t permanently attached to her hand. It baffles me considering I sometimes don’t even know where my mobile is!
I also can’t understand those that speak txt speak aloud as proper words. Saying lol pisses me off the most. If your going to “laugh out loud” just freakin laugh. Although, it is a great word/saying to use to effortlessly take the piss out of someone (mainly bogans) when they think they’re being hilariously funny. I’ve been known to bust out a sarcastic deadpan “lol” in response.
I remember an early episode of Californication addressing the spoken “LOL”. An excellent take.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGz6NdLBF2Y if you’re interested.
Thanks TBL. My head feels better now. Now if you can provide the same service for James Hunters comments all will be good.
Ho ho! Thank you sir, that got a hearty laugh out of me.
I have heard that
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in
waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht
the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pclae.
So maybe there is hope for the great unwashed
LOL. And that lush, James Hunter.
He’s busy over at The Punch, but I assume he will be joining us soon.
Ah, I love irony… but seriously, txt speak is such a bloody irritating thing – one particilally needs a degree in linguistics and cryptography to decipher what these bloody bogan kids are on about.
I bet they’re not nearly as clumsy when it comes to mathematical competence… how else would they work out projected winnings from the free games on Queen of the Nile?
I teach Maths to bogans.
Yeah, they are as clumsy – scratch that – they’re worse!
Basic addition? No?
How to measure something? Anyone? These are the guys who will be building your house!
Working out change from $20? Use the bloody cash registar! (Tip to make money – open a shop selling alcohol or fried food in a bogan area – then short change your customers like hell – three quarters would have no idea!)
Even fractions – no hope! (I thought Jayden would be good at this – dad buys on ounce for $400 and seperates it into quarters which he sells for $120 each….)
As a society we just keep setting lower and lower standards, and then we fail to achieve them!
i bought lunch at Subway the other day, there was some issue with the cash register (probably user error) and “sandwich artist” Tyniesha had the task of working out how much change to give me. The order was $7.50. I handed her $10. She got all flustered, stepped back, and said to me “I can’t do maths”.
I cry for the future sometimes.
Dude, Subway?!
better than Maccas!
True, and life is better than death.
Apparently. This may not be so.
Does Subway have a Heart Foundation tick? Proof that anyone can be bought.
But Jarrod lost 100kgs eating foot long meatball sandwiches. It must be good shit Bogue. Remember Dominos Pizza is now endorsed by The Fattest Bogan.
I don’t know if Subway does – but Maccas does I think! Go figure
I’ve been there too… Amazing that they don’t whip out their iPhone and run the calculator app and sort it out… phones fix everthing don’t cha know!?!
My favourite is trying to get them to give me a note for change, instead of all the loose coins… (ie: $17.75 to pay, and I give them $22.75) and they get all confused, why am I paying them so much when I could just give them a $20 and get the coins back as change…
Sandwich Artist – bet that looks good on a resume…
putting together pre-cut salad between mass produced bread and microwaving the meat… at least they’re not called Sandwich Chef’s…
Those bloody pinko Sandwich Arts courses they’re teaching our kids these days. When are these so-called cultural elites going to grow up and get real? The only way to ensure young Tay’lah a successful career in retail is a course in Sandwich Mathematics and Sandwich Commerce at the School of Hard Sandwich Knocks. Wake up, people. As our education system falls by the wayside these Indian Sandwich Artists come here in droves to take our children’s jobs…
Uh, this is a News Corp-sponsored blog, right?
They took our Jeerbs.
I did see a position advertised for a Sandwich Artist (in all seriousness) just yesterday – I had to consult with the other half to discover it was a deli counter assistant. So, it’s evident that ‘artist’ is the bi-word for banal job descriptions this year…in 2009 it would have been Sandwich Architect…in 2008 it would have been Sandwich Engineer…in 2007 it would have been Sandwich Technician…in 2006 it would have been Sandwich Manager, and so on. When did marketing jargon permeate every aspect of our lives? I’m beginning to think The Matrix was a documentary!
Reminds me of when Big W started calling its employees “associates”.
In the US most retail companies don’t have many “staff” at all, just “associates” – who are not paid (or given benefits) anywhere near as well as real staff.
I don’t think BigW would be able to do that here, but I’m sure they’d try it if they could – after all, Qantarse managed to con people into working for Jetstar on worse pay+conditions….
Ugh, that reminds me of another of my myriad peeves- the term “team member” when used for some pimply 15 year old Kmart employee. There’s no cameraderie, they all secretly hate you and are just waiting for the day they can get a real job. I remember working at Hungry Jack’s as a teen and we would all laugh with incredulity and pity when our tragic, obese, friendless manager referred to us as a team. As if we gave a shit about hamburgers and customer service.
No different to ‘barista’. Someone who makes coffee for a living yet feels it ranks in importance alongside cancer research…..
Been to Rome? Or going?
Go to Taza D’oro (just near the Pantheon) and have an espresso.
It might make you wonder.
Agreed. In Europe “instant coffee” or Nescafe was a (quickly) passing fad and is not even used on camping trips anymore.
Unfortunately it has remained mainstream in Australia – due mostly to laziness and lack of a clue. It is a disgusting embarrassment. I guess that is why Bogans are so happy to spend a fortune at Starbucks on crap espresso – “It tastes heaps better then what we have at home aye!?”.
Sure, making expresso at home for a crowd takes a bit of time. But filter or at least plunger coffee is worth the wait.
I notice you put an X in Espresso. Make sure you dont make that mistake next time you are camping in Europe……Bogan.
As for “Expresso takes time” well, theres no X in ironic.
Go make me a Milo.
arrrrr, I got it right the first time. Did you see that? Seriously, with there are so many x’s on this blog, it is contagious.
Is camping in Eurpoe bogan? How so? What if you live there?
Now go have some Decaf Nescafe instant or ask Starbucks to drop a vanilla hot it in your eSpresso. It seems your full strength eSpressos are making you a bit edgy and aggressive.
I have been considering taking a higher degree in sandwich classics. My sub-thesis could look at the interaction between Vegemite and cheese…
…and your subway-thesis?
Someone beat you to it with iSnack 2.0. Like their spelling and grammar, that too was an epic fail.
For your thesis, why not investigate “What did people say things were the “greatest thing since….” before we invented sliced bread?”
Subway bake their bread daily in every store. Whether they mix their own dough or get it in easily transportable frozen bricks, I can’t say.
Frozen bricks. Just like the cookies ; )
you sound like a really good teacher. Maths- what level of maths? What you describe sounds like primary school maths,how can you be so judgemental towards 10 or 11 year olds?
question directed too Albert
No – the scary bit is I teach all senior high school kids.
My luck is that I have a fairly good success rate in convincing a good proportion that Maths actually does serve a purpose in life, and that life is hurtling their way.
Possibly I am a bit shell shocked. It’s the start of the year, I’ve got a whole bunch of new students whose abilities are (like usual) not great.
Bogans these kids may be, but I end up liking them pretty quickly, and want them to do well.
thanks for clearing that up,as an adolescent im sure i would have been thought of in the same light by my maths teachers, only when i started work and went to trade school did i appreciate the usefulness and purity of maths as i learnt to use it and absorbed it into my skill set,so there is hope for some of these bogans yet
Why has society decided that txt speak is the norm? Why as a whole have we allowed it?
Why should i have to put up with illiterate morons trying to make me irrelevant in this age of stupid because I refuse to engage in txt speak and when i do make a comment i am shot down.
And why oh why have people, especially the mentally challenged that use txt speak, decided that spending 2-3 minutes typing out 160 words is far more productive than picking up the phone and saying it in less than 10 seconds?
Is it because a person can lie as much as he wants and be dishonest in his emotions towards the other person? Like when someone sends a stupid txt msg which is far from funny and person replies with a LOL!
The devolution of society is frustrating.
I agree wholly!!! It is disgusting that we live in a society that contains many barely monolingual trogolodites who think there, their and they’re can be used as variants of the same thing. I have tried to explain that “there car is red” does not denote ownership or a red car but to no avail. I weep for the English language. I am also proud to say I found the above blog very tough to read as I myself am not fluent in SMS speak. Maybe soon TAFE will have night classes. ‘X-treme SMS 101 “Lol wit gr8 ez”.’
I can’t believe I typed or instead of of. Shame. If I had been SMSing I would not have had these issues!
So true… as a society, we’ve put a gun to the English language’s head, forced it to dig it’s own grave and write it’s own eulogy… will anybody be able to understand it though?
Damn bogans… I’d rather endure a colony of fire ants in all my sinuses than read another one of their garbled, gibberish “txts”.
Don’t want to be picky, but you have a couple of extra apostrophes there, Sten.
Is SOS Morse Code txt-speak? BHP corporate txt-speak? Is HIV simply STD txt?
I actually like AFAIK. Dont think Bogues would actually use this one. Something like As Far As I Know sounds too humble and not x-treem for a Bogue.
I think TBL may have been slightly off the mark with a little bit in this entry, I don’t disagree with the intention. But some of the initialisms like AFAIK or IMHO are common place in online forums and I find it hard to believe that bogans would use these two.
After observing a troll raid on a some bogan Facebook pages, I saw some pretty awkward bogan text language in its purest form. It was angry, agressive and over capitalised. An example “USE DONT NO SHIT!!!”, this translates to “You don’t know anything!”.
The bogans’ way of saying the plural version of “you” is “use” and they spell “know” without the “k” or “w” and simplify(?) it to “know”
While on the subject of bogans writing like they speak, my favourite (and encountered on this site several times) is when a bogan ends a sentence with “aye”. Being from Queensland this drives me nuts, because it is bad enough that bogans turn every spoken sentence into a question, let alone every written sentence as well.
I admit that I do this from time to time, to add a conversational and friendly tone to an informal email, to telegraph some sarcasm or occasionally to impart some more feel without using emoticons.
Overdoing it is where things turn bogan.
*edit*
they spell “know” without the “k” or “w” and simplify(?) it to “no”
My subconscious won by stopping me from boganising “know”
It’s interesting that it is being called text speech here, when the shortening methods are shared with computer communication where it is called leet speak. Leet is the coding acronyms, leet speak is using commonly shared, whether they are leet coded or not. Wikipedia Leet for more details. My fave leet acronym is ilshibamf – I laughed so hard I broke all my furniture. Now please excuse me while I go to pwn nub.
I think a lot of people confuse elite speech and text speech. Elite speech has substance, style and take effort, things the bogan doesn’t comprehend.
Leet is the letter coding, Leet speak is using the coding and/or the common acronyms.
I blame the r33! 133t g4m3r d00dz
I can’t stand it. I’m not a top student, but I do know how to spell correctly.
It especially bothers me when HD students can’t even spell words like “too” and “you’re”
That is my biggest irritation! How hard is it to know what’s “to” and what’s “too” or the difference between “your” and “you’re”? Sadly that is not just a bogan trait either, it is everywhere!
It’s a pity TBL didn’t rename themselves ‘thngz bgnz lyk’ just for today.
+1
I lyk dat 1 Tone
What is a premium text service exactly? I only use my phone to make calls when I am not at home, and to receive calls (although I miss more than I answer), and I have never let a telemarketer get beyond “I was calling to see”, and thus have no idea how the concepts of “premium” and “SMS” fit together.
James,
Premium only for the provider. You know the ads that ask you to text in your and your partners name and they will tell you how compatible you are. All for only $5.95 per text (other fees and charges may apply). Now that is how to charge a premium.
Oh okay. Thanks Simon. So it is kind of similar to the mobile cap plans, where instead of the cap being the maximum you will pay, it is really the minimum that is capped.
What a wonderful exercise in doublethink.
James happy to help. I never thought of a cap that way so you have also enlightened me.
I am still pretty old-school when its comes to texting. If a text message actually requires a response, I make a phone call.
Having said that, I have been caught out by predictive text in the past. I have often sent messages like “I’ll be good soon”.
One interesting predictive interpretation did surprise me though. Try and write “Smirnoff” with predictive text. OMG WTF!!!!1111. Quite accurate really.
Oh I get gone/home/good and go/in sent to me here and there and I giggle, I use predictive text myself and sympathise but it must read very silly to people who don’t understand or use predictive themselves.
That Smirnoff one was a beauty too!
So how many of these people who txt tlk join groups on Facebook like “this is Ostraya, we eat meat, drink beer and speak FUCKING English”?
Oh, and I was once handed a job application at the bar where I work, some bogan looking for to be a barman and he barely looked 18, his job application was full of SMS spk, as soon as he walked out the door, it went in the bin!
I was reading over a discussion about “immagrents” on a Facebook group called “Speak English or Piss Off”, and it contained some of the most ridiculous spelling I have ever seen – and I have a six year old child who currently spells things by sounding them out.
The bad speller – an Albury-Wodongan by the name of Sam – claimed to be misspelling in the interests of brevity (“who wnts 2 fukin spel wrds out in full”), but I believe that “immagrents” contains the same number of letters as “immigrants”.
Leaving out the letter “c” in “fuck” has somehow dodged the “Comment awaits moderation” status. You might want to fix that TBL.
I think we just set it up as a filter for anyone who was having a particularly vigourous personal swipe at other commenters, but the profanity of the comments in general makes it hard to come up with an efficient filter. Oh well. TBL
GOLD!
the annoying thing is, my mum has learned to txt speak. No idea who she got that from. Certainly not from any of her children. It’s almost as if she just picked it up by instinct which means, oh no, I’ve got bogan DNA!
Text speak.
You are not alone Andrew, my mum tries it on too. My personal favourite is “Hvng a G8 time” and it wasnt a one off, I have received it several times.
Not entirely sure what a “Gate Time” is, not entirely sure I want to find out either……
Don’t you mean ‘greight time’, Lauren?
Argh! Worse, it is ‘geight time’!
Golden Geightime?
Obviously your mother has been to a few G8 summits. I hope all those powerful heads of government weren’t offended by her tapping out txt msgs during their discussions of global importance…
OMG, afta hiz speech about da menace of homosexuality stephen harper slipt frm da podium &faceplanted in2 sarkozys crotch ROFLMAO 😉
She wouldn’t even know what a G8 summit is.
Definitely off topic, but while passing time before a funeral service I attended in Bondi Junction today, I ventured into an Ed Hardy store for the first time. The sales assistant, showing a mixture of surprise and expectancy, asked ‘if I’d been inside one of our [sic] stores before?’ I replied I hadn’t, but I read TBL and was using the opportunity for research…’ At the time her porkpie-hatted colleague materialized barely concealing his contempt at my mentioning ‘Thingsboganslike’.
Good taste is its own reward.
Wish I was there to see that. I was hoping she would as if you have seen their fully sic shop aye.
Best post so far. But that may be bogan speak- (“ever” endures for 1 day)
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!
Bogans didn’t create txtspeak. It was created by a bunch of nerds on Usenet way, way, way back before bogans knew about the internet. And not just any nerds… LAZY NERDS. Lazy nerds who thought, “Fuck, do I have to write these three words whenever someone says something funny? Bugger it, I’ll use the acronym…” And thus LOL was invented.
I know this because I was one of those lazy nerds who was happy using the bogan-free intermanets, LOLing at the antics of my fellow lazy nerds. And like barbarians invading a farmer’s field to steal his bovine, suddenly the world wide web became awash with bogans who stole our slang!
We nerds invented everything stolen and ruined by other subcultures. Take those creepy goatees that hipsters like. We invented those! And only because we were too lazy to shave. Now suddenly they’re a fashion statement? Fuck off!
Dan, the site is called Things Bogans Like not Things Bogans Invented.
Simon, I understand what you’re trying to tell me, but I think you missed the bit in the article I’m referring to:
“Tired of being told that it can’t spell, the bogan has created an elaborate system of space saving remixed x-treme words, that allow it to fit more inane babble into 160 characters.”
The bogan hasn’t created anything. It was nerds who created txtspeak and was adopted by bogans.
I know it’s a minor point to harp on, but I’m a nerd. Go figure.
I agree – it was around a long time before bogans knew about it.
I’ll go with that Dan, but it takes a bogan to make it incomprehensible!
I think a lot of the acronyms and shortening originally stemmed from IRC and other “chat” systems waaaaay back in the day. Also saw extensive use in Instant Messaging, if I recall.
When I used to use IM with an overseas girlfriend it’d start off as looking like fairly regular English, but it didn’t take long before the conventions of grammar and punctuation fell by the wayside in our attempts to keep the conversation as real-time as possible.
Admittedly, it’s a far greater pain in the arse to spell out some things on a phone keypad than it is to abbreviate or acronymify them. I can readily forgive txt spk in text messages, but when they bleed over into proper prose, it pisses me off to no end.
You don’t seem to have covered ‘Premuim’ yet either. Was reminded of it two fold because of your use of it at the end, and because Telstra (and others) used it all the time to rip of bogans for other services!
I believe that all these rumours about the death of the English language expressed in this thread are greatly exaggerated.
The op-ed pieces in tomorrow’s Sydney Morning Herald won’t be written in textspeak, nor does Tony Jones pepper his diction with “lolz” or “ZOMG!” on ABC1’s Lateline. Contemporary literature is still written in Standard English (with a few specialised exceptions and dialectical variations such as the trans-Atlantic differences in spelling), and the next blockbuster Broadway play will probably feature few of the insensible abbreviations detailed in today’s TBL post.
Just remember – the bogans don’t own the English language (thank heavens). Nor do they determine the direction our mother tongue shall evolve towards in the future. As has been the case for seven hundred years, the literate and the intelligent will determine the “prestige” form of how our language is used – the form that is taught in high schools and which is used by our newspapers, even the tabloid News Ltd crud.
By the way, a great post from TBL, and an even greater thread. I haven’t laughed so hard at something I’ve found on the net for quite a long time – especially at Going Bogue’s comment about <3. My neighbours must hate me now!
“Just remember – the bogans don’t own the English language (thank heavens). Nor do they determine the direction our mother tongue shall evolve towards in the future.”
Recently, I talked about something similar with some friends. We were discussing about how the misuse of the word “literally” became commonplace, whether r not the language was determined by people who had no idea what they were doing, and whether it’s the evolution of language or just plain wrong.
Agree.
For those that think texting is for the illierate, go and borrow the book “Txtng: the Gr8 Db8” by David Crystal. Crystal is one of the most famous linguists alive today and is a big fan of txtese/sms-speak. He makes the point that you have to be able to read and write before you can text. Yes, there are idiosyncrasies with people spelling words differently to others. But it’s a new form on writing.
He has also found that people aged between 20-40years actually use more correct spelling, syntax and punctuation than those who are 40years and above. Therefore we cannot assume that ‘idiots’ and bogans only use textese.
For those who think that it is an abomination that we have let “our English” get to this stage, relax. English is about to get a lot simplier. Languages historically become less complicated in their lifespan. For example, today we speak a version a lot simplier than Shakespeare did. Native English speakers are a minor fraction of global English speakers today. Perhaps in 100 years “our English” will be dead and everyone could be speaking a version from India or China and it will probably be the bogan who assimilates easier than speakers of “proper” English
You do know that most of the regular bloggers on this post are just as bad??? A Toorak bogan is still a bogan, even if writing in Latin. You can tell by the subtle sense of haughtiness and more obviously by the LOL (just ’cause it’s not in a text message, does not make it OK). Keep laughing at your estranged bros and sistas, kids; they are not as far away as you might like to think…
“You do know that most of the regular bloggers on this post are just as bad???”
I think you might mean
“You do know that most of the regular posters on this blog are just as bad???”
Jesus, I think I just lost 10 I.Q. points trying to translate that non-sense.
How about thisfor BGN SPK? gfckurslf. arshle.
s brd cld kil mslf
All this talk about “text-speak’ brings back vague memories of George Orwell’s “1984”. Didn’t the ruling regime implement “good-speak?”, a dumbed down version of English that was meant to reduce creativity and imagination? Looks like it took about 25 years longer, but I reckon ol’ Georgie was on the money!
I swear reading the text-speak took about 5 times as long as reading the article in English. Another great post TBL.
By the way, I love the use of IMHO (in my humble opinion). Just like “no offence”, it almost always proceeds a rude, ignorant or stupid comment.
I don’t see that as bogan at all – that kind of texting was happening before bogans could afford a mobile phone.
It reminds me more of l33t than bogan speech. They don’t even swear as much in texts.
You’re right, it is more 1337-speak than sms. I guess it depends how many NaB’s frequent online forums.
OH LORD I just saw this post on a facebook website. I wept for the state of our education system, I appreciate a language must evolve but this would be easier to digest if it was vomited up instead. I quote “i love fb now lol its the tghing i do everynight n keep in tutch wiv me m8s n that but i did used to have a life” WHAT? Far out. Tutch wiv me m8s………… How do these people get jobs? Mind you if they have jobs and use correct spelling during work hours they should be applauded for being bi-lingual!
[…] Simon Says 4 03 2010 While reality shows like Big Brother allow the bogan to send a slew of SMS votes at moderate expense, there is a pronounced lack of merchandise and consumable products […]
My in-laws type like this on Facebook. I have to get my husband to translate their messages.
10/10 tbl.
I reckon apply the tobin tax to SMS’s. .5 of a cent goes back into public expenditure. Imagine all that bogan-chick revenue? That would learn ’em! LMFAO!!!
[…] up with the equally tremendous 2 Fast 2 Furious, the creators capitalized on the bogan’s love of SMS speak before the misstep of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift which, possessed of unusual punctuation […]
God, you’re so annoying Fiona – you’re not the epitomy of class, as you seem to think, in fact, it really seems like you’re trying suspiciously hard to prove something. As the bogues would say – shut yo’ trap biatch!