Giving examples show how technology is providing interesting new opportunities for exploiting linguistics in the name of marketing

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

With the increased use of information technology and computers, there has been a
noticeable positive and negative impact on linguistics. Text messaging and chat rooms have made it much easier to abbreviate common words, primarily due to limited space on keyboards of cell phones such as BlackBerry and to reduce time involved. Thus, a combination of numerical and alphabetical abbreviations is being used. For example, GR8 (great); CU (see you); AFK (away from keyboard); b4 (before); BBL (be back later); BRB (be right back); GMTA (great minds think alike); l8r (later) and ^5 (high five). In Korean, the phonetic pronunciation of the numerical sequence 8282 (Pal Yi PalYi) means hurry up and 7179 (Chil Han Chil Gu) sounds like "close friend." In some languages numerology has different meanings which when decoded can convey messages. In addition to being exciting, such use of terminology can make slogans stick in the minds of consumers and therefore can be used effectively in marketing. Some of these are getting universally accepted terms due to common use of computers and technological gadgets.