When 'tml' Looks Bleak

I came across this article “Is Texting Making Us Bad Spellers?” on Scientific American’s website. http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=is-texting-making-us-bad-spellers-09-09-23

The writer of the article claims that while many critics point blaming fingers at text messaging for undermining the English language, research has shown that there is no clear relationship between the use of SMS lingo and the inability to spell. In fact, the results show that if one is a good speller academically, he/she is also likely to be a good speller in SMS language. If you had read on, you would have noticed the flurry of comments, all begging to differ.

Generally, I do agree that using SMS lingo does not necessarily affect one’s command of the English language. From my own observation, I have seen friends with excellent command of English who are heavy addicts of the SMS lingo. However, the hypothesis that, those who used more abbreviations when texting tended to be better spellers of Standard English, appears rather dubious. From my own experience, I do not see how using abbreviations in text messages can improve anyone’s spelling (not in the local context at least). Just take the abbreviation ‘tml’ as an example and it is not difficult to see my point. As you would know, ‘tml’ stands for the Singlish word ‘tomolo’. Some abbreviations are even more outrageous. For instance, ‘rofl’ stands for ‘roll on floor laughing’. I only knew what it stands for recently! Although these words are recognized and accepted by almost every Singaporean – both the good and bad English users – I feel that we should not rely too heavily on the SMS lingo. Chances are it will do more harm to our already grim standard of English.

The article should worry Singaporeans quite a bit. If Americans are concerned about the problems of SMS lingo, even when the country uses excellent English (and is perhaps the only country with the Spelling Bee competition broadcasted on national television), then Singapore faces a very daunting task. As it seems, while we are struggling to overcome the dominance of Singlish, our SMS language adds insult to the injury. The ambiguity as to whether the SMS lingo is detrimental to the English language makes the issue all the more challenging. In no time, we will get too comfortable with the casual mix of Singlish and SMS lingo. From there, no effort can rescue ourselves from this slippery slope.

Since the SMS lingo looks like it is here to stay, I feel that the best approach is not to go against it. Rather, I would choose to use it with greater moderation. And most importantly, I would abbreviate words and phrases “correctly” in Standard English. For instance, ‘tmr’ would definitely look better than ‘tml’.