The text message that jumps to life on my screen reads: “i miss u !!”
I pause. I wait. I deliberate. I text: “!! imy 2.”
I send it back to my good friend of almost 10 years.
Language, like our appearance and taste, is a form of self-expression. What we say and how we say it is not only a reflection of how we’re feeling, but also how we want others to perceive how we’re feeling. Whether it’s above or below the level of consciousness, everything we say is strategically chosen to exude a certain persona, level of intelligence, or level of caring. This goes beyond our lexicon or the words we choose: It goes right down to the smallest morpheme, the last exclamation point, the smiley face with or without a hyphen for the nose.
So what are we saying when we don’t say much? What are we saying when we tastefully put a space between our exclamation points, or when we consciously text “ur” instead of “you’re”? If we show love and romance via excessive, flowery language, then the insincere and disinterested end of the spectrum must be minimalistic text talk.
By definition, writing is just an extension, another avenue, of spoken language. In theory, our writing should emulate the way we speak. With text talk, though, there’s a disconnect.
What used to be a way to save time on your little hot pink Razr phone is now an opportunity for you to extend your aesthetic into the written world. As opposed to talking, when it’s hard to hide sincerity and genuineness, texting allows you to remove yourself and maintain a level of coolness and cavalierness. What better way to show this than to pretend you don’t even have the time to write out “you” or “are”?
Text talk has become self-expression in and of itself. It’s the perfect way to show your recipient that you’re interested, but not too interested, that you find something funny, but only enough to scrape together a half-hearted “lol.” On multiple occasions, I’ve purposely revised a text to read “How’re u ??” instead of “How are you?” or “miss u” instead of “I miss you.”
If I want to let my friend know that I’m thinking of her, why can’t I just write it out, consonants and all? Why do I feel the urge to alter my writing to exude a level of nonchalance?
Maybe it’s because I want my friend to think that I am, indeed, nonchalant about missing her. I want her to think I miss her, but just the right amount. Maybe it’s because I’m scared of looking like I care too much. Maybe I’m scared I do care too much.
In linguistics, there’s a phenomenon called the accommodation theory, and it’s when we change our language to accommodate, or appease, others. This occurs far beyond the realm of linguistics, of course, but is especially pervasive in communication.
So why do we do it? I’m no linguist, but I’d argue it comes from a place of fear and desire to fit in. No one wants to be the outsider, the one who’s vulnerable when everyone else is even-keeled. Above all else, no one wants to be rejected. No one wants to shimmy out on a limb and have their actions unreciprocated.
And so we do what we can to control how others perceive those actions. No one can accuse us of caring too much if we pretend we don’t care at all. So we refrain. We refrain from fully spelling out words, and thus, refrain from fully sharing our true sentiments. Proper grammar has a level of gravitas, so we forgo that, too.
We embellish as well: We over-punctuate and add excessive parenthesis to smiley faces and arbitrarily capitalize words. We deliberately hold off on texting back immediately to appear busy. We make everything casual.
I pick up my phone and begin to compose a text message to a friend with whom I’ve lost touch. I want to tell him that I’m thinking of him, that I read an article he would enjoy, that I want to see him over break.
I pause. I wait. I deliberate. I type. I delete.
I go out on a limb. I text: “Maybe over winter break we can get coffee or something.”
He doesn’t respond.
Reach writer Laura Mishkin at opinion@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @lauramishkin
