SMS text messaging ? the wildly popular form of short e-mail sent over cell phones that has swept England, Europe and Asia ? is finally coming to Canada.
The four top Canadian wireless phone networks have announced an agreement to work out a technology that allows the Short Message System (SMS) to work for all their subscribers….
…An SMS message is limited to 150 characters, and so it has encouraged the development of a form of shorthand communication known as “texting” that has become a mania in some parts of the world.
In England, poetry-writing contests have been held for “texters,” and there was one instance when a whole novel was written over the SMS system by a large number of people assembled for the event. Even the Concise Oxford Dictionary has included the shorthand language in its revised edition published in July. Examples that have found a place in the dictionary include BBLR (be back later) and HAND (have a nice day). They are joined by so-called emoticons – representations of facial expressions when viewed sideways, such as 🙂 and :-(.
Source: The Globe and Mail
