“13yo skool grl is nu US txt mssg chmpN”

(A file photo…)

For those above 30 years of age the above headline means that “13-year-old school girl is new US text messaging champion”. Got it?

While competitive text messaging may not have quite gained Olympic status, the hundreds of mostly teenagers who took part in the US championships in New York Saturday could think of little but the 25,000-dollar prize money, reports James Hossack of the AFP.

“In the end, 13-year-old Morgan Pozgar faced off against Michael ‘Cheeser’ Nguyen in the east coast final, with Pozgar slipping past her challenger to face west coast champion Tirosh, a law student from Los Angeles.

“Wearing a satin boxing robe before her championship bout against Pozgar, she said success would come down to who could marry lightning speed and accuracy. She said she owed her success to relaxation and deep breathing.

“So dedicated is she to the art of the text message that Tirosh apparently unwittingly uses abbreviations such as BTW (by the way), TTYL (talk to you later) and LOL (laughing out loud) in her normal speech.

“Pozgar said she trained by sending on average 8,000 text messages a month to her friends — an astonishing rate of one every five and a half minutes. She pays 10 dollars a month for an unlimited text package on her cell phone.”

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