I know this is very old news, but I’m still in holiday mode. I came across it again recently anyway, so it’s like fashion – everything old is new again. Back in 2003 (yeah, that old) the satirical Christian online magazine Ship of Fools ran a competition to rewrite the Lord’s Prayer in 160 characters or less. This was based on the concept that text messaging and online chat abbreviations were taking over the modern language. Of course, that debate still rages on and there are people that are convinced that text messaging, sorry txt msg, will take over once today’s teenagers graduate. Of course, there’s a fundamental flaw in that logic, but let’s not all get into a flap about something that’ll never happen. Language continuously evolves, but not at that pace and not driven entirely by teenagers. Even though they’d like to think that they are responsible for everything. But I digress.
The Ship Of Fools competition wanted the Lord’s Prayer in 160 characters or less, as that is the accepted standard maximum for a mobile phone text message. The winner was Matthew Campbell of York University, with the following sterling effort:
dad@hvn, ur spshl. we want wot u want &urth2b like hvn. giv us food & 4giv r sins lyk we 4giv uvaz. don’t test us! save us! bcos we kno ur boss, ur tuf & ur cool 4 eva! ok?
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