Old-School Victorian 'Text Messages' Arrive at the British Library

(Aug. 23) -- Before there were text messages -- or rather, "b4 txts" (B.T.?) -- there was emblematic poetry.

Fashionable during the Victorian era, emblematic verse played games with form and typography. A poem about flight and divinity, for example, might have its stanzas arranged in the shape of an angel's wings.

And a pining ode to one's beloved might substitute letters, numbers and punctuation marks for actual words: "He says he loves U 2 X S, / U R virtuous and Y's."

This kind of diction, of course, will probably be familiar to any modern-day reader who has ever used a cell phone or Twitter.

The British Library recently announced that it will open an exhibit in November called "Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices." The collection will trace the development of the English language through some 15 centuries.

Along the way, the collection will feature examples of emblematic poetry that seem to foreshadow present-day texting practices.

The lines above are taken from "Essay to Miss Catharine Jay," a work by an unknown poet that dates back as far as 1847, and even earlier in different forms.

The poem is shot through with letters and numbers standing on their own, in a manner recognizable to any 21st-century texter -- though the themes here are a little more weighty than "c u @ the show."

An example:

"But friends and foes alike D K,
As U may plainly C,
In every funeral R A,
Or uncle's L E G."

Nor does "Catharine Jay" exist in isolation. Another poem, "Dirge to the Memory of Miss Ellen Gee, of Kew," laments the untimely death of a young woman who had a run-in with an insect:

"For ah! the Fates! I know not Y,
Sent midst the flowers a B,
Which ven'mous stung her in the I,
So that she could not C."

It may be that England's centuries-long relationship with textspeak can help shed light on another recent development: Melissa Thompson, a 27-year-old Brit, took the Guinness World Record for fastest texting this week.

Thompson fired off a 25-word, 160-character message in 26 seconds. Unlike "Miss Ellen Gee," Thompson's message didn't use abbreviations -- although it was concerned with animal attacks:

"The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human."

Good 2 kno.