Get Your Ph.D. In Textology
What’s the craziest, weirdest text message you’ve ever received? I know I have a bunch of zingers. There’s the buddy who sends me a random text message every six months that just says, “Hippopotamus.” Or there was the time a friend I hadn’t seen in a while replied to my friendly, “How r u?” text with a shocking, “I’m gay, deal wit it!” And of course there are the more fun, unmentionable texts I like to refer to as “sexts.” Use your imagination for those. Well, British graduate student, Caroline Tagg, was so fascinated with texting that she has become the first person to receive a Ph.D. looking at the language of text messaging. OMFG, how dope! After reading 11,000 text messages containing 190,000 words sent by 235 people, Dr. Text (I have to call her that) made some fascinating discoveries that she shared in her 80,000-word thesis. Like that people don’t actually abbreviate as much as she anticipated, and that they text more like they talk then like they write, using phrases like “dunno” and other unnecessary words. And the best … people use metaphor and playful manipulation in texts, making it a creative and expressive form of communication. [Telegraph]
I knew it! This may prove once and for all that texting is not making us stupider. GR8! Revel in those unlimited text-messaging plans, friends.