Legal Research

Texting, dictionaries, and keeping up.

By Shaunna Mireau

I am the very proud parent of two lovely teenage daughters. The Mireau Giggles do not have their own cell phones, much to their dismay. Some day soon they will both have steady employment and I am sure phones are high up on the purchases priority list. As an aside, I had no idea that I was being mean as I MOS my kids while they email in our shared family office.

Rather than MYOB [mind your own business], a careful parent (or a lawyer trying to decipher instant message transcripts) will be happy to know there is a texting dictionary tool available. Thanks to Matt Homann’s tweet for pointing to the DTXTR. What is DTXTR?

Four out of five teens today carry a mobile device ? using it to instantly connect with friends and family, play games and get online. New trends show that texting is on its way to becoming more popular and important to teens than voice-to-voice calling. In fact, 42% of teens report that they could text with their eyes closed!

Keeping up with your teen can be exhausting, especially when they appear to be conversing in another language ? which is where DTXTR comes in. LG is committed to providing parents the interactive and collaborative DTXTR resource so you can decode your teen’s texts, and stay on top of the texting trend.

The resource includes a fairly exhaustive glossary, and the ability to add terms should you find one that isn’t in the list.

The DTXTR may not be quite as exciting for Slaw readers as Black’s for the iPhone or Oxford’s iPhone/iTouch app or Curehunter’s visual medical dictionary or Lingro or even the Merriam-Webster audio pronunciations on their online dictionary. As Simon C. pointed out long ago, legal dictionaries are very valuable research tools. I would argue that specialized dictionaries also have a key role to play, especially those that decode new and emerging communication methods.

By the way [BTW], MOS means “Mom Over Shoulder”.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on July 16, 2009 (boomark / email).