The British mobile phone company, Dot Mobile, has solved the problem of declining cultural literacy. The way to bring classical literature home to today's students is to summarize it in the stunted syntax of the text message. Dot Mobile has hired University College London emeritus English professor John Sutherland to spearhead the project of reducing great works of literature to simple and memorable text messages that people can read while using their cell phones:

"We are confident that our version of 'text' books will genuinely help thousands of students remember key plots and quotes, and raise up educational standards rather than decrease levels of literacy," the company, Dot Mobile, said in a press release.

Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy is rendered: "2B? NT2B?=???". At the end of Romeo and Juliet, "bothLuvrs kill Emselves," while Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice concludes when "Evry1GtsMaryd."

"Woe un2mnkind," is part of its summary of Milton's Paradise Lost. Milton actually wrote "Woe to the inhabitants on Earth."

"Dot mobile's unique service amply demonstrates text's ability to fillet out the important elements in a plot. Take for example the ending to Jane Eyre -- 'MadwyfSetsFyr2Haus'. Was ever a climax better compressed?" said Sutherland, this year's chairman of the judges for the Man Booker literature prize.

What I do know: Dot Mobile's plan to improve educational standards appears be more geared toward elevating the status of the text message than toward promoting either literacy or literature. But that's 2 B XpecTD.

Thanks to Maurice Black for the link.

I wonder what assumptions are behind this idea. That kids will be delighted to read anything as long as it's the form of a text message? That the only reason that kids aren't reading the classics now is because books are too heavy or otherwise inconvenient, or because the language is too hard for them to understand?

I bet optometrists will make out better than anyone with all of this - can you imagine reading even an incredibly abridged book on a tiny cell phone screen?

"Take for example the ending to Jane Eyre -- 'MadwyfSetsFyr2Haus'."

Er, that's not exactly the ending to Jane Eyre. A lot of stuff happens after that. Has he read the book?

I've been seeing this "Civilization coming to an end!" story everywhere. Whoever came up with the plan to generate publicity through "controversy" nailed it absolutely dead-on.

On a note unrelated to this entry but relevant to the medium on which we read it: http://www.slate.com/id/2130466/

(Well well well...somehow I've stumbled here, Professor. I hope this is not a problem.)

But I think it's coincidental that you should mention John Sutherland, because I found this the other day whilst working on a certain unnamed final paper:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1206012,00.html

"On his new LP, Mike Skinner - aka The Streets - talks about eating a burger, washing his jeans and charging up his mobile. Literature professor John Sutherland says these narratives put him up there with Dostoevsky and Pepys."

Who would these fardels bear? I wonder.