Textspeak is the short, squeezed way of writing that people use in messages — 'u' for you, 'r' for are, 'l8r' for later, 'thx', 'brb', 'lol', 'omw'. It is an uncountable noun, so you say 'written in textspeak', never 'a textspeak' or 'textspeaks'. You will also see it as 'text speak' in two words or 'text-speak' with a hyphen; all three appear in print. Two things are worth knowing. First, the word usually carries a small judgement — it turns up most often in complaints, in headlines like 'Is textspeak ruining English?', or from a teacher saying 'don't use textspeak in your essay'. Very few people describe their own writing as textspeak. Second, the panic behind those headlines has faded. The heavy shortening came from old phones that charged by the message and made every letter cost effort; once typing got cheap and easy, much of it dropped away, and today's messages are closer to ordinary spelling with a few survivors like 'lol' and 'omg' hanging on. Research also found that children who used it were not worse spellers — often slightly better, since playing with letters takes some skill.

簡訊縮寫語；火星文（台灣常說「火星文」，但火星文更廣，包含注音文和符號）