It’s 10 a.m. on a Saturday and, while I haven’t bothered to brush my teeth, I’ve managed to send seven text messages. Almost every day I awaken to a cacophony of the beep-bop-booped words, numbers and symbols crunched out by my and my roommates’ cell phones. We must be a set of nimble-fingered ladies, judging by the speed and amount of texts flowing from our apartment, or otherwise deeply indebted to the text messagers’ godsend: T9, or predictive text.

The T9 program speeds up text messaging by predicting words from any combination of single keystrokes, instead of multiple strokes to scroll through letters. The program comes with more than 30,000 words. Although the original code supposedly “mirrors everyday language found in news media, conversations and business situations,” many users find that T9’s original word bank lacks common words but contains words like Mogadishu and shiv. However, T9 allows users to add words to the program. T9 also records the frequency of word use and places users’ most-used words as the first T9 suggestions. Through these options, T9 reflects communication specific to the users themselves.

In the past two weeks my roommate has sent and received over 1,300 text messages. At any time of the day or night, the boop-beep-boop-boop-boop of her text message ring tone — a particularly jazzy selection from Lady Sovereign’s “Love Me or Hate Me” — chimes throughout the apartment. She slides open her Sony Ericsson 580i Walkman phone with a sly flip of her wrist and texts her response without dropping verbal conversation. During the past three months she has owned the phone, she’s added the following words to her T9 word bank:

bastard, Bitch, bitch, bitching, boobs, comfy, antsy, brownies, bullshit, cupcakes, filipino, doodle, dunno, douche, Fresno, Fuck, fuck, fucking, evanston, Ew, ha, haha, hellhole, hyphen, lollipop, melatonin, metra, oof, ouch, santos, shit, pissed, slutty, snicker, smoothie, smush, pregame, std, uber, Yay, yay, whoa, whore, yum

Just from knowing these tidbits about my roommates’ text messaging habits, you’ve found out quite a bit about her. She has an interest in pastries, sweets, sleep aids, public transportation and Fresno. She’s also a passionate, feisty woman — one who’s not afraid to speculate about the condition of someone’s slutty hellhole or STDs. T9 allows users to make their personal mark on their communication devices, altering their technology to reflect the way they communicate. As her communications with others evolve, the technology changes to reflect this evolution.

T9’s ability to reflect changing vernacular is suited to both an ever-evolving language and the culture that is changing it. With neologisms aplenty, “abbrevs” and common cultural knowledge not reflected in the T9’s word bank, a hip “tex mex” reflects a hip text messager.

To reflect the trendiness of text messaging, many magazines and media outlets have started using text messages as a type of celebrity primary document. New York magazine’s “Artifacts: Findings from the streets, files and hard drives of New York” often presents text message clips or other digital documents. A February issue of New York features text message exchanges between Internet celebutard Cory Kennedy and scenester photographer, The Cobrasnake’s Mark Hunter. Here’s a selection from the feature:

CORY NYC: Hurry?
CORY NYC: Srsly?
COBRASNAKE NETFLIX NEW YORK: Am I gonna miss it all?
CORY NYC: Hurry ?
CORY NYC: Omg?
CORY NYC: A dude?
CORY NYC: Omg?
CORY NYC: Ur gonna DIE?
CORY NYC: Omg

Text messages’ immediacy works well in direct, closed-communication with another person, but, as this feature proves, not as well out of context. Yet that’s part of its charm. This selection probably “srsly” reflects the typical interactions between that Cobrasnake dude and his muse. With celebrities glued to their PDAs both on camera and off, this type of media documentation stands to continue.

Yet, with T9’s ease and cultural immediacy, comes a real opportunity for miscommunication. Even though T9 offers more convenience than the multi-tap method, even one slip of a finger can change a message’s meaning. Textonyms are mean alternatives T9 suggests for a word with the same keypad strokes.

For example:
hey, lets get breakfast?
becomes
hex! Jets 4ev creak east!

Other T9 textonyms communicate a different, more poignant message. The word home becomes good and gone. Hug is huh and gtg. Love is loud. Kiss is lips. Sex is pew.

Although these options may be just a function of a computer program, in an environment where many people use text messaging as one of their primary forms of communication, a T9 miscommunication often holds more weight than a keystroke or a mere coincidence.