Thursday, August 23, 2007

FWD: -No matter where life takes us promise we'll always be friends send to ten great friends including me=)
from a 925 phone number, Thursday, August 23, 4:46 PM

This particular chain text seems considerably less instructive than the "HIV needles in gas pumps" chain text I received last week. Heartwarming, perhaps; instructive, certainly not. Doesn't this person know that "instructive" is the new gold standard in text messaging? She really ought to follow the "Tom brady had a boy" model.

Going back to that one, by the way... I am so excited to now have that piece of knowledge, without having had to exert any effort to obtain it. I intend to make a lot of casual conversation about it. "So, did you hear that Tom Brady just had a boy?" I will not make casual conversation like, "So, did you hear that no matter where life takes us promise we'll always be friends?"
Tom brady had a boy
from a 408 phone number, Wednesday, August 22, 7:33 PM

I just looked it up on Yahoo!News, and this is, in fact, true: Tom Brady did have a boy. See how useful the Leila Texts can be? If only more people would text facts to one another, instead of cryptic party invitations (c.f. the "party @ masons" text and the "partyy at marks" text). I would become a whole lot smarter as a result.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Hi leila love you!
aly----@hotmail.com
allarie e-mail adress.

from an 845 phone number, Monday, August 20, 4:09 PM

The actual text includes a full email address, of course, but I've removed it here to protect the sender's privacy (as much as I can, given that I'm posting her private correspondence to the entire Internet).

It often baffles me the places where people do and do not exert effort to use proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. For example: putting the hyphen in "e-mail"? That seems pretty hard. It takes at least a couple extra keystrokes. And it's not like Leila wouldn't have known what Aly was talking about had Aly just written "email." So the hyphen wasn't for clarity, or for speed. What was it for? These are the sort of linguistic questions that I grapple with daily.

P.S. Aly-- I love you too. (Possibly.)

Monday, August 20, 2007

heyy partyy at marks on wed. from 5 to 10...be there or be square!
from a 631 phone number, Monday, August 20, 9:56 PM

I often receive texted invitations to events that I cannot attend (mostly because I don't know where they are being held, or who invited me). It's sad, because it's like I'm very popular... only not really.

Also, as a side note: I find it odd that both "hey" and "party" are spelled with two 'y's at the end. Either would make sense-- "heyy" sounds debonair, and "partyy" sounds like a badass shindig-- but one immediately following the other reads as a little awkward. Not that it matters to me; I'd still love to go to Mark's party on Wednesday. If I knew who Mark was.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Allie says hi
from a 413 phone number, Sunday, August 19, 7:39 PM

I actually know people from the 413 area code (it's the Berkshires), many of whom would send me texts similar to this one. So theoretically this message could be intended for me, and not another Leila. Only I don't know anyone who spells her name "Allie." So this could be someone I know in the Berkshires, texting me to say that someone I don't know named Allie says hi.

Most likely, though, it's someone I don't know in the Berkshires, texting a Leila that I don't know, to say that Allie (whom I don't know) says hi. So this is not actually my concern at all.
park ey did you ever take a music class in college
from a 714 phone number, Sunday, August 19, 5:57 PM

The difficult thing about predictive texting is that it really could be anything. "ey" is obviously not a word. But had s/he typed a 4 after it, it would have turned into "fyi." Not that "park fyi did you ever take a music class in college" makes sense, either. Maybe s/he just put the space after the wrong letter, and it was supposed to be "par key." At least keys have something to do with music.

I haven't yet made sense out of this text, but I have raised an important point, which is that mis-typed predictive texts are not as straight-forward as you might assume.

And to answer your question, 714: Yes. I did take a music class in college.