I feel like an old fuddy-duddy...

[estirose]

I have to confess, I only have text messaging because it comes with my plan. I mostly ignore it.

So, I'm sometimes at a loss to deal with the etiquette.

I know in the world of standard telephone conversations, it's considered not rude and even polite to tell someone they're calling a wrong number. That way, they know that they should try to ring the person/find a new number for their party.

The two times I've told people in text messages that they've texted the wrong person, they act likelike I'm being rude/in their face.

Now, I know that text messages cost money, and people might want to avoid getting charges, but shouldn't you, then, make very sure you've texted the right number in the first place, instead of taking it out on someone who is just trying to point out you've reached the wrong person????

Comments

[reka]

I'm pretty sure it isn't impolite, but I'm not a heavy text message user myself. Maybe people are sensitive because they can't tell you're the wrong person before telling you things? I don't know.

[estirose]

From what I read on etiquette (which is mostly when not to text people), I think you're right.

Looking back, I think two unfortunate things happened with this second message (which was the hardly personal "Troy, kal me"): I am not used to text messaging so my message was more curt than I intended, and I think the texter might be on the young side and presumed I was reacting like a teenager or very young adult instead of a thirty-something who barely knew to shorten "before" into "b4".

[reka]

I'm not much beyond my teenage years, but I've never heard of somebody using "kal." But I'm not really the model twenty-something anyway. It probably wasn't curt as much as different from what the texter expected.

[estirose]

Yeah, I seem to surprise texters, for some reason. And it might be a regional thing. Or the texter in question cannot spell.

I have to admit, "cool" spelling for me as a teenager was using UK spellings instead of American. So I feel old. :)

(I swear that I should just start replying in Esperanto. It would confuse them less.)

[reka]

I think using UK spellings is still "cool." When the volcano erupted in Iceland, we had two very very tangentially related boys from outside London who were trapped in New York, and they milked their accents for all they were worth.

Esperanto would be good, I think. I was talking about linguistics the other day, and he insisted to me that only linguists spoke Esperanto. I think it'd be neat to learn someday, but I don't really have the skills at this point in my life for effective self study.