Generation TeXt and the Death of the Question

4COL - For crying out loud - from Text Messaging and Online Chat Abbreviations

Generation TeXters, Queens, NY

Little did I know way back last century when she was a little girl, that my daughter was ahead of her time. "Dear Grandma," she wrote to my mother, "I will "C U 2morrow."

Will this abbreviated cyber-texting talk become the new written vernacular? I expect so - at least it will influence it.

What concerns me however, is not so much the accelerated spelling "reform", but the reliance on the internet that is pervading nearly all areas of our lives. Face-to-facing will become so much Face Talk.

Look at the three guys above left. They were obviously friends but communicated through their cell phones. There were obviously six virtual people sitting on that bench. Perhaps even more.

I am well aware of the advantages of having the internet, but sometimes I spare of getting sawy from it.

The crunch came when I asked (via text of course) a good friend, what "split heating" meant. Beep beep, almost before I'd hit the send icon his answer came back, "Google it." Hmmmm I see.

Questions are so twenty seconds ago!

Questions in verbal form to another human being that is.

Even in Queens, NY, There's No Escaping the Internet Highway!

Today I asked a young woman the way to "Pie Face" - a new Australian joint somewhere on 53rd Street. I wasn't sure whether to walk east or west. She was responsive but didn't speak - well not to me that is. She simply asked Siri on her iPhone, and then showed me the map.

For a moment I was in a quandry. How could I answer with a smiley face? Surely that was the least I could do. But by the time I had worked it out, that we were two human beings and not simply two iPhones, she'd disappeared.

I would have asked Siri myself, but it doesn't understand my Australian accent. I once tried setting it to speak Australian, but was put off by the fact that the Apple creators have decided to model the Australian accent on our Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. I just don't speak Bogan. To top it off, if you DO speak Bogan - Apple for Australian - then Siri explains (in Bogan) that she only knows places in America.

"I'm in bloody America!" I feel like screaming.

I never did get to Pie Face. Instead I just checked out their website, after all, why actually GO there?

The Pie Face site proclaims proudly that Pie Face originated in Sydney. That explains a lot. I won't bother giving you the URL as it is really Sydney, really annoying, and advertises coffees with names like "Kiss My Arse" and "Start My Heart". It seems to have a lot of stuff about pies - real pies, not chicken pot pie or apple pies à la Americaine - but I can't stand websites that make noises on loading, although I must admit I've never come across one quite so gross as Pie Face's, which screams out burp noises every few seconds.

I couldn't hang around long enough to find the stop-noise button, but I WAS there long enough to hear a non-burp noise that sounded like someone wiping their nose on their coat sleeve. So it's bye bye Australian
Pie
Face

Stay tuned.