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> Plus, it was short. Text messages originally came with a 160-character limit. That's why people developed text message shorthand, like lol for "laughing out l

by ezekg 9y ago

> Plus, it was short. Text messages originally came with a 160-character limit. That's why people developed text message shorthand, like lol for "laughing out loud." Is this correct? I always thought it was coined on some bulletin board or chatroom.

dragonwriter 9y ago
Yeah, much “text message shorthand” actually developed on pre-SMS fora (BBSs, Usenet, and various network chat/messaging systems, among others) for reasons other than strict length limits. Particularly on online live-messsaging systems, terse expressions help reduce the slowdown associated with turning thought into communication.
themodelplumber 9y ago
I think it was BBS in ancestry but maybe they're saying "That's why" as in "That kind of situation is why..." I was surprised to learn that "tnx" was an early morse code convention (lol is 'hihi'). Oh and seeing the phrase "tricked out" in a book from I think the 1800s (via Gutenberg.org) was also surprising.
- endymi0n 9y ago
  Could have been ze Germans in both cases... "tricked out" is an often self-coined (but wrong) direct translation of "ausgetrickst", meaning outwitted.
- Stratoscope 9y ago
  "tks" is also a common abbreviation for "thanks" in Morse. A laugh is actually just "hi", although sometimes it would be repeated if conditions were noisy. Then it would be "hi hi" with a space in between, not all sent as one word. So why was "hi" used to indicate a laugh in Morse in the first place? There's no obvious connection with either the word "hi" or the individual letters "h i". The reason is that the meaning here is not in the actual letters or word, it's the sound of "hi" in Morse: • • • • • • http://mg.to/audio/hi.wav http://mg.to/audio/hi.wav It just sounds funny to hear that. A bit reminiscent of the rhythm of the old phrase "shave and a haircut, two bits" but more concise. Oddly, many hams to this day also use "hi" or "hi hi" in voice contacts instead of laughing. I guess that's not too different from saying "lol" out loud! "es" is another interesting abbreviation. This of course is the Spanish word for "and", but hams always use "es" instead of "and" in Morse. It's one letter shorter, but that's not the real reason. Here's "and": • ——— ——— • ——— • • vs. "es": • • • • Much shorter and easier to send!
  - ghgr 9y ago
    > This of course is the Spanish word for "and", I'm confused. The Spanish word for "and" is "y". Maybe you meant that hams use "es" instead of "is"?
    - JCharante 9y ago
      Interestingly enough y would be ——— • ——— ———, which is the same length as • •••. Although I think it's still faster to "say" es.
    - Stratoscope 9y ago
      Actually, I was the one who was confused! That's what I get for commenting late at night. Now I'm not sure what the derivation of "es" is. It's definitely used to mean "and", but I don't know why. In any case, thanks for the correction. Update: I just figured out where I got the mixed up Spanish connection! There is a Spanish word used as a Morse code abbreviation, and in fact it's used in every QSO. It's not "es", it's "de" which means "from" both in Spanish and on CW/Morse. So I had the right idea, wrong word. hi hi tks es 73 de WJ6V
Nition 9y ago
Isn't there still a 160 char limit as well? I thought the support for longer SMS protocol messages these days was just multiple messages in the background. Wikipedia still just says "Larger content can be sent using multiple messages".
- asmosoinio 9y ago
  Yes, longer SMS messages are technically sent as multiple parts, each one SMS.
  - _acme 9y ago
    Which is why iPhone users hate texting Android users. Their messages always come in green, split up and in the wrong order.
- rusk 9y ago
  Depends on the encoding. It's 160 chars over 120 bytes using a special 7 bit encoding. However, if you fall back to ASCII it's 120, or if you're using a wide character encoding it drops to 60. But as someone else says we have concatenated SMS these days to cater for the longer messages.
conductr 9y ago
In general, I think the popularity of shorthand can be attributed to having to type on a 10 key phone pad. Typing was slow, so things were shortened.
supermdguy 9y ago
This guy claims he coined it on a BBS: http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~crwth/LOL.html http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~crwth/LOL.html

by ezekg 9y ago

dragonwriter 9y ago

Yeah, much “text message shorthand” actually developed on pre-SMS fora (BBSs, Usenet, and various network chat/messaging systems, among others) for reasons other than strict length limits. Particularly on online live-messsaging systems, terse expressions help reduce the slowdown associated with turning thought into communication.

themodelplumber 9y ago

I think it was BBS in ancestry but maybe they're saying "That's why" as in "That kind of situation is why..." I was surprised to learn that "tnx" was an early morse code convention (lol is 'hihi'). Oh and seeing the phrase "tricked out" in a book from I think the 1800s (via Gutenberg.org) was also surprising.

endymi0n 9y ago
Could have been ze Germans in both cases... "tricked out" is an often self-coined (but wrong) direct translation of "ausgetrickst", meaning outwitted.
Stratoscope 9y ago
"tks" is also a common abbreviation for "thanks" in Morse. A laugh is actually just "hi", although sometimes it would be repeated if conditions were noisy. Then it would be "hi hi" with a space in between, not all sent as one word. So why was "hi" used to indicate a laugh in Morse in the first place? There's no obvious connection with either the word "hi" or the individual letters "h i". The reason is that the meaning here is not in the actual letters or word, it's the sound of "hi" in Morse: • • • • • • http://mg.to/audio/hi.wav http://mg.to/audio/hi.wav It just sounds funny to hear that. A bit reminiscent of the rhythm of the old phrase "shave and a haircut, two bits" but more concise. Oddly, many hams to this day also use "hi" or "hi hi" in voice contacts instead of laughing. I guess that's not too different from saying "lol" out loud! "es" is another interesting abbreviation. This of course is the Spanish word for "and", but hams always use "es" instead of "and" in Morse. It's one letter shorter, but that's not the real reason. Here's "and": • ——— ——— • ——— • • vs. "es": • • • • Much shorter and easier to send!
- ghgr 9y ago
  > This of course is the Spanish word for "and", I'm confused. The Spanish word for "and" is "y". Maybe you meant that hams use "es" instead of "is"?
  - JCharante 9y ago
    Interestingly enough y would be ——— • ——— ———, which is the same length as • •••. Although I think it's still faster to "say" es.
  - Stratoscope 9y ago
    Actually, I was the one who was confused! That's what I get for commenting late at night. Now I'm not sure what the derivation of "es" is. It's definitely used to mean "and", but I don't know why. In any case, thanks for the correction. Update: I just figured out where I got the mixed up Spanish connection! There is a Spanish word used as a Morse code abbreviation, and in fact it's used in every QSO. It's not "es", it's "de" which means "from" both in Spanish and on CW/Morse. So I had the right idea, wrong word. hi hi tks es 73 de WJ6V

Nition 9y ago

Isn't there still a 160 char limit as well? I thought the support for longer SMS protocol messages these days was just multiple messages in the background. Wikipedia still just says "Larger content can be sent using multiple messages".

asmosoinio 9y ago
Yes, longer SMS messages are technically sent as multiple parts, each one SMS.
- _acme 9y ago
  Which is why iPhone users hate texting Android users. Their messages always come in green, split up and in the wrong order.
rusk 9y ago
Depends on the encoding. It's 160 chars over 120 bytes using a special 7 bit encoding. However, if you fall back to ASCII it's 120, or if you're using a wide character encoding it drops to 60. But as someone else says we have concatenated SMS these days to cater for the longer messages.

conductr 9y ago

In general, I think the popularity of shorthand can be attributed to having to type on a 10 key phone pad. Typing was slow, so things were shortened.

supermdguy 9y ago

This guy claims he coined it on a BBS: http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~crwth/LOL.html http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~crwth/LOL.html