Alphanumerish is a term coined to define the shorthand typing language that has developed from computer users' habit of substituting numerals for letters and substituting both letters and numerals for words or word parts. For example, the Alphanumerish phrase "c u l8r" can take the place of "see you later," while the computer smiley " :-) " and other emoticon s can substitute for entire sentences. The term internationalization is an example of a long term that has been given an easier-to-type form, i18n (meaning the initial "I", 18 more letters, and the final "N"). However, i18n isn't one of the more commonly seen examples of Alphanumerish in text messaging . For those, see our list of chat and text messaging abbreviations .

03 Aug 2007