Sms (Short Message Service)

S M S

C G FRANCIS XAVIER

Along with developments in telecommunications, mobile phones assumed paramount importance. Communications achieved an all time popularity in mobile phones. Instant contact with the desired person is the main attraction. Land phones are fixed and accessing people through it is limited to their range like homes, offices or establishments. Since mobile phones are portable, people can be accessed anytime, anywhere.

Pager, which was the ancestor of mobile phones, communicated only through text messages. Even though people can talk over the mobiles, text messaging became more popular, especially among the youth. SMS, as it is fondly called, is the craze of the times. It is widely used to impart information, while entertaining.

As the tariffs went down, fun messaging became very popular. Service providers are vying with each other by offering hundreds of free messages per day to attract subscribers. All sorts of messages are sent through SMS. They range from sublime to grotesque, sober to playful, depending upon the type of people sending or receiving it or upon the occasion. Classic messages like seasonal greetings are popular with majority of people while youth have embraced more playful SMS.

It is interesting to note that SMS has developed into a literary form, sans syntax! Grammar or spelling is a thing of the past. Conveying the message is the only criteria. Stalwarts like Bernard Shaw tried in vain to make English phonetic. People rejected his weird ideas of spelling words exactly as they are pronounced. But yuppies of the modern times do it with panache. There is no traditional spelling and grammar in any of the messages. Language has become very flexible. People explore possibilities of using more than one language for SMS. One of the most popular youth SMS like "mis u da" conveys an emotional message using two languages.

It was William Shakespeare who wrote that "brevity is the soul of wit". SMSes...