I don't think toot misinterpreted the first reply since he was referring to his recent stay in New York and perhaps his personal experience.
I can't confirm the preference for phone calls over short messages in America either, but I remember having read a newspaper article which seemed to agree with toot.
Interesting that both in German and English SMS is used as a noun and a verb. SMS stands for short message service+, so if we text someone, we send them an SM, not an SM +S .
"Is there a verb "to text"?"
I looked up Chambers and it will not have it: noun or nothing. I looked up Cambridge: it will have it, and ye may choose trans. or intrans.
As far as I'm concerned there is a verb 'to text'; and 'I texted her/him' is the way I'd use it.
That it is not in a (given) dictionary is neither here nor there, in one sense: dictionaries play catch-up and sanction or ignore usages after they are in use.
Interesting that both in German and English SMS is used as a noun and a verb. SMS stands for short message service, so if we text someone, we send them an SM, not an SMS.
Well, initially people sent each other "SMS messages ", right?
...but of course my experience in both places has been limited to the people I know, which can never be representative for an entire population.
I couldn't help but smile as I read that, because I think that the people you know can be representative of an entire population, shilgia, if you choose to know the right people.
Like Shona, I am an older person, and I honestly don't know how many minutes I have on my plan; the phone was free, I can call anywhere in the U.S. for whatever the rate is, and the numbers that display on the screen are so LARGE that I could even make calls without having my glasses on.
In Malta we say both "smsed" and "messaged" when we speak in English. I think it's a British thing. Only the Americans seem to prefer texting to smsing. Where else is "messaging" used for when one sends an SMS?
I don't know anymore what people sent and said initially, but SMS message is all the more a pleonasm, isn't it?
SMS message is all the more a pleonasm, isn't it?
I don't think so. "Short-message-service message" is not the most elegant name for it, I agree, but I wouldn't say it's a pleonasm. To say that a message was sent by short-message service repeating the word "message" is almost unavoidable. "Independent-newspaper-syndicate newspaper", "bridge-authority bridge", etc. -- I'm making them up here, but I don't think they are wrong.
I think that the people you know can be representative of an entire population, shilgia, if you choose to know the right people.
OK, perhaps they can, NorthAmerican. But I'm pretty sure the people I know are not. Especially in the US where I'm new and the circle of people I know is limited both in number and diversity.
Also, not to make an argument out of it, but I wonder how you can know whether the people you know are representative of the population as a whole.
Edited by: shilgia, two minutes after posting.
To shilgia:
I was joking.
My attempt at humor fell flat, and I apologize. In fact, any one of us might have a group of friends who happened to be representative of an entire population, but it would have been the result of pure chance rather than of our having chosen them.
I not only failed to make anyone smile with my comment at #13; I see that my copied text from your comment at #9 failed to display as a quote. When I am fully awake I will see if I can figure out what I did wrong.
Meanwhile, my best wishes to you, and to all, for a New Year of contentment and good health.
OK, sorry, I didn't realize it was a joke.
A very happy New Year to you too, NorthAmerican.
re 15, we don't call it an SMS message. SMS even though it actually stands for Short Message Service, it has changed its meaning to the actual message itself. In fact you're more likely to hear "SMS service" than "SMS message". The first is surely pleonasm.
What I was saying was that we say either SMSed or messaged, one or the other. The latter is becoming more popular I think.