This has had various repercussions. For one thing, I like to punctuate things properly, even when they’re only text messages. It’s only rarely that a text message requires a semi-colon, but one likes to be prepared for all eventualities.
Another problem is that of the emoticon. With the limited space available in a text message, emoticons are very useful for conveying a tone. Now, unfortunately, while I can smile [:)] at people or look sad [:(] at them, winking [;)] has become impossible.
It is interesting to remark how many symbols on our regular keyboard are only used now for purposes entirely different to the ones for which they were conceived. The semi-colon is only one example; while the vast majority of the populace seems unsure of how to use it in a sentence, the necessity of winking keeps it alive. But there’s the @ symbol, first conceived by medieval monks in order to save themselves writing out the whole word “at” (if this seems lazy, remember that the poor men spent huge portions of their lives copying out massive manuscripts). At some point @ began to stand for “at the rate of”, and if this had continued, the only people using the symbol would be writers of maths textbooks and grocery shop signs. But the internet happened, e-mail followed, and now we find using the symbol every day.
On my own keyboard, the < key is used far more frequently than the > key. Mathematically, these are the signs for “less than” (<) and “more than” (>). If I used them only in this context I suspect I wouldn’t need them more than once or twice in my life. But the internet has discovered that the < sign coupled with the number 3 together make what looks (if you tilt your head to the right) like a heart [<3]. It seems a little strange, at first, to be telling people that one less-than-threes them, but one gets accustomed.
And then there is the hash, or number sign, or octothorpe [#]. This sign has a long list of uses, but its usage to stand for “number” is probably the one that most people will be familiar with.
But thanks to Twitter, the “hash” is back in use again. Users of this web-based service realised that there was no way to create groups or sets of tweets, and so began to add “hashtags” (specific words preceded by a #) to them to enable other people to search for them more easily. It was a convention borrowed in part from IRC channels (I suspect younger users of the internet now have no idea what I am talking about) and caught on in a big way.
Twitter also makes use of the @ sign in a big way — it’s now become quite common for people to link or refer to their twitter profiles by typing @username. Perhaps twitter could take up the caret instead.
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