Re: txt msgs & BrSc

Raymond Brown wrote:
>
>If all youngsters who indulge in web chats & ICQ messaging were familiar
>with this use of {txt}, I would agree.  But I can assure you, that as a
>lecturer in Computer Science I am painfully aware that now (unlike 10 years
>ago) on this side of the the vast majority of my students have no idea what
>filename suffixes are and are hopelessly lost outside their Windows
>environment - and as for other operating systems, forget them; and as for
>trying to teach them to program, I think I'd have more success if I tried
>teaching them Sanskrit.  As a programmer, I find it depressing so few are
>interested - but I'm getting a bit off topic now.
>
>No, I feel most think the {x} = /Eks/, analogous to the {8} in {gr8}. after
>all they are used to {Xmas} /"Eksm@s/ and {xray} /"Eksrej/.  Indeed, there
>is a distinct tendency here for semi-literate to read initial x- as /Egz/
>in unusual words, e.g.  'xanthic' /Eg"zanTIk/, 'xiphoid' /Eg"zIfQjd/,
>'Xerxes' /Eg"z@(r)ksiz/, etc.  I've even heard /Eg"zajl@f@un/ !
You may well be right, but I suspect that {txt} for "text" was introduced by
people used to DOSesque three-character file-endings. FWIW, when I came
accross it for the first time, I immediately associated to .txt-files, and
I'm most certainly no computer geek (trying to teach me Sanskrit is
guaranteed to be more successful than trying to teach C++!), tho' I might be
a couple of years older than the typical Abbrev-using teen. The shortening
text>txt is so small that I feel it's less likely to arise as a practical
solution. When it's been used for a while, nobody'll really think about its
origin anymore.
>
>But the interpretation of individual symbols in 'Abbrev' is, I think, a bit
>of a red herring.  I think we'll probably all agree that however they're
>used, their usage is not consistent.
Obviously not. And the goal is not always brevity either - sometimes variant
spellings are used just because they're "k00l". Yuck!, I really hate that
spelling but you get the point.

                                             Andreas
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