Here's the Economist story:

duz txt msgN mAk U :-) o :-( ?

R U wurEd dat d eng lngwij wil bcum cor^ted & unrEdabl, dat kds wont no how 2 spL? olds got ^set rEsntlE wen a 13-yr-old :o)3 in w scotl& rOt a skul SA in txt. she sed it wz EZer thn writN all d borN lng wrds. it Bgan: “my smmr hols wr a CWOT. B4, we Usd 2go2 NY toC my bro, his GF & thr 3 :- kds FTF. ILNY, it iz a gr8 plc.” d Tcha sed he c% dnt BlEv it, it wz fulla hIrOglifs he c% dnt transl8

bt dnt fret. d sAm sorta shrt& n tLegrams o cAbls (remMbR dem?) didnt dstroi eng. kds txt (nOt d nu verb) Ech uthR cuz itz :) & chEp. 4ling mob fone chRjs & nu typz of mob fones mA mAk vox cmUnik8shn populR agN

txtN wil stil survIv, bt az a ritN dialect, jst az spOkn dialex survIvd Tchaz F4tz 2 frash dem outa :- kds. so cheer ^!


Here's the transl8t decoding of the first few sentences:

does text messaging make you happy or frown question

are you worried that the english language will become corrupted and unreadable, that kids won't no how to spell? oldies got upset recently when a 13-yr-old :o)3 in with Scotland wrote a school say in text. she said it was easier then written all the boring long words.

Damn. Computational linguistics still hasn't got a usable basis ... *sigh*


- Pfranz