How to Guide / Mobile Technology

Creating your own SMS language & making the most of your texts

by Bernard Sinai · Published December 7, 2010 · Updated March 20, 2017

Short Message Service (SMS) or more commonly referred to as text is probably the mode of communication for this generation. However, a single text message is limited to 160 characters. Fortunately there are ways to maximize your message content without exceeding the character limit.

There is no recorded standard in place and people usually create their own formats. I am going to share my format and hope that you can come up with your own.

Combinations

I love combining letters, numbers and special characters. For example, for the word battery I’d use b@3. (B @ (at) and 3 (terry)). In the end this 7 letter word is represented with letters. Neat aye?

Use of capital letters

I use capital letters when the word I am writing has the sound of that letter. Here’s an example, the word example can be represented as XMpL. So you would say the letters X M and then the sound that p makes then L; put it all together and pronounce it quickly and you get the word example.

Use of numbers

Now I am sure you can work this one out for yourself. While numbers can be combined with letter and special characters to make words, it can also be used alone, e.g., 2 can substitute for ‘to’, 4 for ‘for’ and 8 for ‘ate’ etc. You can do this for almost any word that sounds like a number.

Shortening words & spaces

Sometimes a word can simply be shortened. Message can be shortened to ‘msg’ and text to ‘txt’. Another thing is that spaces used are also counted as a character so to maximize your texting you should try to use no spaces.

Anyway, let your imagination run loose and create your own format. There is not right or wrong – it only has to be understood by the person receiving your message.

Now for business users I suggest texting in your actual business language.

NEwyIlivU2Cr8UrOwnMsgs&CUl8r (Anyway I leave you to create your own messages and see you later). 🙂