Lecture 5: Article in "Txt Spk" by Murriel Mapa

The Toronto Star’s article, "Balloon boy bursts dad's bubble." Monday, October 19th, 2009

Bloon boi brsts dadz bbull

Fmus. Infmus. Da distnctn don’t matr n e mo’.

Da Heenez got wat they lustd 4: Wrldwyde TV face-time, a pathetic affmtion of their othrwiz insgnfcnt xistence, star billin in manufctrd melodrama. Mssn accomplshd. All it took wuz an alumn foyl bloon dat resmbulld a humgous hngovr i-bag, a cnsprcy o’ pretense 4ced on their kidz and da complcty o’ a crdlous meDa cntamnatd by infotainment prssrs.

+ PoPo 2, they wr in on da sham, alBt + allgdly sumwut Bltdly, mntng wat they now claim wuz a tit-4-tat stng in ordr 2 elct da tru.

“Dis was a hox,” Larimer Cnty Shrf Jim Alderden cnfrmd Sun dring a jaw-drpng press cnfrnce. “Weve snce lrnd, as mny o’ u hav, dat dese ppl r actrz.” Ind’d, da cpl now in da xhrs had met at a skool for thespians in Holwod. “They put on a vry good sho 4 us + we bot it.”

Lordy, da xtnt 2 wch sum fokz’ll go 4 a pce o’ dat relty TV axn, a 21^st cntry fnomenom dat is intrnscly un-rl in its concts, yet invstng celebs on da vapd.

“On da bizrr mtr, dis rates a 10,” Alderden obzrvd.

If so, da bndrs have just bn pshd even frthr out n2 da twilight zone o’ crftd mise-en-scene wer da waky r.

Iz ne1 prprd 2 bet dat da Heenez wont get their cvtd relty sho on sum shmless cbl chnl? Even if denied such an ofr, theyre clrly jst as cpbl o’ prdcng a do-it-urself onln verzn or straight-2-utube iballz mgnt.

The two styles are very different in the way that the "txt spk" form is very difficult to read and even to write, whereas the regular text is much more personal and informative to read. The "txt spk" version requires a lot more patience in deciphering the words, which can be a lot more time consuming than just reading an article at face value in the English language.