Thursday 6 August 2009

Blacktail. Capriped. Especially and geyser. Lambative

The abbrvtd language of text and online forums isn't as new a phenomenon as people make out. I heard a great radio-or-podcast thing whose origins I can't remember which was about letters sent by Boswell or similar, and which included shortenings every bit as gnomic as txt-speak.

And telegrams had a similar code, partly for economy, because you paid by the word, and partly for secrecy. Ben Schott writes about this in the NY Times, which I was put onto by Jenny Davidson's Light Reading over on the right.

Schott's good at spotting the ones that are fun/oddly specific. Here are a few:

ABUSAGE - His absence is rather mysterious
ANDALUSITE - You seem to be annoyed
HURST - The hunting expedition will not set out
TITMOUSE - I accept with pleasure your invitation to the theatre tomorrow evening
INSIDIATOR - How much is your life insured for? (This is my favourite, because of how the word somehow echoes the tone of the question)
DEWS - Destroyed by a cyclone

I have become obsessed with, no, I mean interested, in trying to tell stories using these phrases. The story told by the headline (which contains six words for good reason) is:
You have made a blunder. Cattle are scarce. Do not try the experiment and do not pay in gold. Engage a good lawyer.

1 comment:

riffle said...

The radio program you refer to is possibly "What Texting Owes to the Literary Enlightenment," broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2009.

It's not up on the BBC site, though it appears it's been put up as an MP3 at mediafire.com

What Texting Owes to the Literary Enlightement.mp3

Here's a brief review:

The Independent

And the BBC description is here

BBC Press

I have not related to the creators of the program nor to the BBC.

Good luck with your book!