The Pleasures of the Text

The New York Times Magazine

The Way We Live Now

By CHARLES McGRATH

Published: January 22, 2006

There used to be an ad on subway cars, next to the ones for bail bondsmen and hemorrhoid creams, that said: "if u cn rd ths u cn gt a gd job & mo pa." The ad was promoting a kind of stenography training that is now extinct, presumably. Who uses stenographers anymore? But the notion that there might be value in easily understood shorthand has proved to be prescient. If u cn rd these days, and, just as important, if your thumbs are nimble enough so that u cn als snd, you can conduct your entire emotional life just by transmitting and receiving messages on the screen of your cellphone. You can flirt there, arrange a date, break up and - in Malaysia at least - even get a divorce.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/magazine/22wwln_lead.html