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Photo: Mohammed Yousuf

Toggle it Predictive texting has its devout followers as well as those who radically oppose it

He or she could very well send a puzzled reply exclaiming “Huh? – There is a said. Please pick us up east???”

This is predictive texting – where what the phone ‘predicts’ for you, might not be the words you want to send.

I couldn’t for my life figure it out till I got the hang of it, and then my mother was perplexed when she started using it, my father of course gets annoyed if I forget to turn it off.

Predictive texting, known as T9 or Dictionary in some mobile phones takes some getting used to – and requires you to check your message before you hit send.

So is typing “Thrs a raid. Pl. pk us up fst”, ‘communicative’, quicker and more convenient?

Rajeshwari B., a functional consultant, who uses the dictionary mode finds it is easier as you don’t have to type out every letter for each word.

“I don’t check my messages after I type them, and very often friends reply asking me what I meant by my message!”

She also has problems with spellings. “When I get stuck at the spellings of some words, then I send the incomplete word, hoping that my friends understand what I am trying to say!”

Nandini Kumar, a III year college student finds predictive texting difficult to use.“It is better to use the normal mode and key in short forms. I find the dictionary mode complicated.” She adds: “I’ll only key in the complete word if I have to type out something like ‘Olympics’”.

Dhanya Hariharan, a surgeon, concurs when she says: “Maybe I am too lazy and do not have the patience to type out the whole word in the dictionary mode.” She finds that though her friends can understand her short forms for words, someone like her father will find it difficult.

Then there are those who detest abbreviations like Manoj Venkatraman, a strategic consultant. “I hate all forms of abbreviations as they are very hard to read. The dictionary mode is more convenient as even if one or two words are not stored, I can always spell it and it will remain in the memory when I want to type it again.” He feels that it is mostly students who use short forms in the normal mode as they want to finish one message in 160 characters. “It is cheaper for them, and using complete words in the predictive texting mode might usually result in more than one message. Also, for them reading and writing should be instant and something they don’t want to spend too much effort on.” The time-consuming and cumbersome aspect of the normal mode is typing each letter till the right one comes. Swaratika Majumdar, a medical student says: “Pressing the same button many times is annoying. But in the dictionary mode, I just have to key in the letters, scroll down the list of options in words and click on the right one.” She says she doesn’t usually have a problem with spellings. “If you type out the first four or five letters of a difficult or confusing word, then automatically the dictionary will give you the entire word.”

Kavya Chandra, a III year college student feels that only beginners who have just bought their first cell phone or switched models have a problem with the dictionary mode.

“It takes some getting used to.” She adds, “There is a time-lapse using the normal mode.” She points out, “The MMS of standard messages like “I will be late” or “I am in class” is very convenient. “It can be sent in a millisecond. The younger generation is more likely to catch up faster with technological advances than the older one.”

Dr. Mukund Rao, an English Professor at Dr. Ambedkar College says, “I wouldn’t take a cultural or linguistic stand or judgement on the SMS culture in its use of language and symbols in terms of grammar and spellings. I would rather see it as having a strong connection to the post-modern lifestyle that we all live in. It is not connected to language but rather to life on the fast track.”

Whatever the reasons be, technical or grammatical – some people feel that short forms are keeping up with the trends of this hi-tech world, where phones are updating itself each day, whereas others from the ‘old school’ prefer to read complete words and sentences – and that’s where ‘predictive texting’ comes in.

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