Textonyms give mobile phone addicts a new language

Fairfax

ZONINO POISON! Can't understand the text messages you're getting? They may be written in a new mobile phone text language sweeping the world.

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R U cycle? Book! Fancy an adds down the sub? There's a gr8 new carnage.

It may look like gobbledegook, but the most streetwise of teenagers would have no trouble translating and responding to it in kind.

A new language is being developed by mobile phone-addicted kids based on the predictive text of their treasured handsets.

Key words are replaced by the first alternative that comes up on a mobile phone using predictive text -- changing "cool" into "book", "awake" into "cycle", "beer" into adds", "pub" into "sub" and "barmaid" into "carnage".

Those expressing excitement with the old-fashioned text phrase "woohoo!", now use the far more hip "zonino!" instead.

The replacement words -- technically paragrams, but commonly known as textonyms, adaptonyms or cellodromes -- are becoming part of regular teen banter.

And the older generation -- many of whom already struggle with simple text language -- are being thrown into yet deeper confusion.

According to David Crystal, a language expert at Bangor University in Wales, the new language is the latest in a long history of kids' linguistic creations.

"Everybody plays with language," he told Reuters. "Playing with language isn't new. It's absolutely normal for kids to experiment like this.

"And it's important to remind adults that they did exactly the same thing when they were kids, they just didn't do it on mobile phones."

Some of the most popular textonyms show intriguing links between the originally intended word and the one the predictive text throws up -- "eat" becomes "fat" and "kiss" becomes "lips", "home" is "good" and the vodka brand "Smirnoff" becomes "poison".

- Reuters