Textonyms Give Mobile Phone Addicts a New Language: 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”.
The article goes on to say:
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”.
