Redrocks blogged a question to which I added a comment that became too long so I shortened it and put the rest of my thougts in my own blog to avoid spouting too much over there. Redrocks was asking about the word kewl.
People using SMS tend to want to use as few letters as possible, to pack as much into the message as they can.
Kids especially want to speed up the process, so have been clever enough to find ways to avoid having to spell words when the letters are all on the same key. This saves time waiting for the cursor to catch up. My hate is having to spell words that have 'igh' in them, so night, right = nite, rite. 'kan' is quicker to key in than 'can'.
We avoid the double vowel for the long vowel sound by substituting another spelling, so 'look' becomes 'luk', keep' becomes 'keap'. 'cool becomes kewl.
We tend to drop the second of a double consonant; 'litl' works just fine for 'little'.
We can drop a silent vowel: 'dubl' works for 'double'
We drop a silent consonant; for example 'pik' works for 'pick'.
We use 'd', 'f' or 'v' to substitute for 'th'. So 'with' can be 'wid', 'wiv' or 'wif'.
SMSers use number keys or single letters to represent small words or syllables - 2nite, c u L8er. How about this conversation:
"I M 4 U R U 4 me 2?""S I M 4 f r n f r"
They have discovered by themselves what linguistic researchers spent grant $$ on - that people can read a message even when vowels are misplaced or missing.
As a teacher of english and literacy for years, I do expect correct formal spelling on formal work - but I know that the context of a TXT/SMS message helps the reader to work out what the sender meant. So i do not have a problem with the way words are spelled on a cell phone or in a student's class notes.
