The scene is set in April, 2007, in a dark ballroom, packed with 250 challengers, all with their eye of taking the title of mobile phone US Texting Champion from reigning West Coast champion, Eli Tirosh. Round by round, competitors are knocked out, as only the first precisely punctuated message to reach the judges is accepted to proceed through the championship. Messages like “OMG, nd 2 talk asap” flew to the judges “faster than a speeding bullet”, but there were also the more philosophical inclusions, such as “what we do in life echoes in eternity” (gosh, in this case, I hope not!). Everything seemed to be going according to plan for the 21-year-old Tirosh, until the last round against 13-year-old Morgan Pozgar. Slamming her phone down first after completing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidoucious! Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious. If you say it loud enough you'll always sound precocious”, without abbreviations, the judges ruled in Pozgar’s favour after it emerged that Tirosh had made a costly typo in the tricky Mary Poppins term “Supercalifragilisticexpialidoucious.” D’oh!
Competitive SMS-ing on mobile phones is big business in the United States. Pozgar took away $US25,000 in prize money – hopefully a fitting reward for the 8,000 text messages send per month as training. At a rate of one SMS every five and a half minutes, she surely makes the most of her $US10 per month “unlimited text” mobile phone deal package.
Today’s mobile phone offers a lucrative outlet for the nimble-thumbed. The world record for text messaging is held by an 18-year-old from Utah. Ben Cook took a mere 42.22 seconds to type the tongue-twisting 160-character professional texting phrase:
“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.”
Cook had previously held the record in 2004 with a time of 57.75 seconds, however a 23-year-old woman from Singapore (43.24 seconds) had been the most recent title-holder.
One thing is certain – it’s taking unlimited text mobile phone deals to a whole new level!