As the new term gets under way and teachers once again try to connect with the mobile phone generation, readers may have missed this cautionary gem from a survey conducted by a national newspaper during the holidays.
A teacher, a parent and a student were asked whether they bothered with punctuation in their text messages. All said they used varying amounts of punctuation but the 17-year-old student discovered the limits to text language when he texted his mum recently with TB at the end of his message.
He and his friends use this to mean “text back”. She thought he meant “tatty-bye”.