Textonyms give mobile phone addicts a new language

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - R U cycle? Book! Fancy an adds down the sub? There's a gr8 new carnage.

It may look like gobbledegook, but the most streetwise of British teenagers would have no trouble translating and responding to it in kind.

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."

Those expressing excitement with the old-fashioned text phrase "woohoo!," now use the far more hip "zonino!" instead.

The replacement words -- technically paragrams, but commonly known as textonyms, adaptonyms or cellodromes -- are becoming part of regular teen banter.

And the older generation -- many of whom already struggle with simple text language -- are being thrown into yet deeper confusion.

According to David Crystal, a language expert at Bangor University in Wales, the new language is the latest in a long history of kids' linguistic creations.