Large Fierce Mammal

There’s an old story set in the days when the fastest and cheapest method of long distance communication was the telegraph. Two men bought a race horse that was doing so well in a series of races that they found themselves with the necessity to enter it in a race that was half a continent away. Fattened by their winnings, although not fat enough, they found that by the time the transportation costs for the horse and jockey were paid, the kitty permitted only one of them to accompany them. A flip of a coin decided the issue and they were off, as it’s said, to the races.

Betting nearly all they had on their horse, the race went well … up to a point. From the start, it was in the lead until, on the final stretch, it stumbled – with disastrous result. A broken leg demanded that the horse be immediately put down, and the accompanying partner was devastated. Heading off to the nearest telegraph office to notify his opposite number of the outcome, he learned that he’d have to pay by the word instead of by the message as he had supposed. With only enough money in his pocket to get home, plus another dollar and a half (he’d been counting on being flush with winnings), there was no way he could afford to send a detailed message. He thought a moment and then asked the telegraphist to sent, “SF SF SF SF.”

The telegraphist complied and then asked, “I know it’s none of my business, but would you mind telling me what that means?”

“I don’t mind at all,” said the man, “It means, ‘Started fast, slipped and fell, shot the fucker, see you Friday.'”

As with the telegraph company in this anecdote, there was a time when cellular telephone carriers likewise charged by the character for that simultaneously useful and thrice accursed thing called “texting”, resulting in the development and rapid proliferation of so called “text speak” – an agreed upon system of cost saving abbreviations intended to convey words with minimal use of characters (although this doesn’t explain how “banana” became an accepted euphemism for “penis”). Regrettably, text speak has become the norm in written communication exchanged between members of a generation that has never known anything but a cellular plan that includes unlimited texting, but to whom “u” will always be the proper spelling of “you”.

There is a tendency, based on a far too wide spread conceit of far too many, to learn of something that was done a certain way in “the olden days”, realize the reason is unknown to them but make no attempt to research why, deciding instead to derive contentment from the conclusion that it’s because the people back in those days simply didn’t know any better. Here in Nova Scotia, we regularly see this play out when monied city folk with an untreated edifice complex  buy coastal property and build palatial houses on flood plains and expanses of exposed shoreline. All the hills around have houses on them that are 100+ years old, and nothing of similar age aside from an easily replaced fish shack or boat house exists on the shore, but them monied city folk iz privy to somethin’ nobody else knows – them olden times house builders didn’t build on the shore because they “didn’t know any better”. And so, every major hurricane and spring flood, everyone with an insurance premium gets to help pay for that fallacy after Nature comes to call.

But I digress. Getting back to text speak, I have no doubt that it will come as quite a surprise to many that the people who relied upon the telegraph to get their messages there and back again faster than any mail train or ship could manage, had no problem with engineering a workaround for the pesky issue of word length and sentence structure. The result – The Anglo-American Telegraphic Code to Cheapen Telegraphy, hereinafter referred to as “the Code”, published all the way back in the 19th century.

Its mission:

It is the outgrowth from what, at first, consisted of various special codes, adapted to special businesses, which were quite limited in scope, and later, of more general codes of wider scope. At last a demand comes for one which will embrace all subjects of correspondence, and this work is designed to meet it.

The expense and publicity entailed in the use of the telegraph are recognized as serious obstacles. This work will cause a great diminution of these, in many cases practically eliminating them. Embracing as it does, social and domestic, as well as business and miscellaneous subjects, a large proportion of correspondence which is now conducted through the mails, can, through its medium, at slight expense, be conducted, confidentially and quickly, by telegraph.

Its use will also be recognized as an important means of confidential communication not only in telegrams but also in letters and postal cards.

This system will be found to be a novel one to the greater part of the public, but it is believed that its usefulness and importance will be promptly recognized while its simplicity makes it available for every one.

Actually, screw texting. It kind of sounds like the conception of e-mail doesn’t it?

Obviously the birth of text speak was never so well thought out, but it shares one commonality of the human condition – people of all eras like to pinch their pennies until the monarch stamped thereon has tears in their eyes. After all, frugality is the travelling companion of commerce. But beyond simple cost control, the Code contained aspects of self-preservation.

The advent of telegraphy with its far reaching implications for world wide communication open to anyone with the money to pay for the service put telegraphers – the people who rattled that telegraph key – in high demand. This led to an occupational hazard, known back in the day as “glass arm“. Today we’d call it repetitive strain disorder. You can see where this is going, can’t you?

Yes, you’d hand your already carefully streamlined message to the telegrapher, pay the quoted fee, and then he’d be off to send it using the Code to ease the strain.

Doesn’t this knowledge make you feel all cutting edge 21st century and stuff?