Text messages

Text messages sent via mobile phones make a person feel closer to its recipient than sending email. People send text messages instantly and conveniently without worrying too much about spelling, sentences or grammar. For this reason, people often make mistakes in sending text messages. Embarrassment results after one erroneously sends the message “Long dive, grandma” when the sender meant “Long live Grandma.” Another person receives a message reading, “Thank you darling, I lose you (instead of I love you)” after buying the latter a present.

Text messages are often confusing since they are sent without identifying the subject in a sentence. Examples are “(I) regret it (considering) our friendly relationship,” and “(I) did not know (if I) was a person who should have known better than that,” a message which presidential adviser for media affairs Lee Dong-kwan sent to main opposition Democratic Party Rep. Park Jie-won. These two sentences can have completely different meanings depending on what the subject is in the second sentence. It could mean that “(I) regret our friendly relationship,” and “(I) did not know (if you) were a person who should have known better than that,” “(I) regret it (considering) our friendly relationship," or “(I) did not know (if I was) such a meaningless person (to you, Rep. Park).

Lee sent the message in protest against Park after the latter mentioned his name while talking about lobbyist Park Tae-gyu, the mastermind of illegal lobbying for a savings bank. Upon receiving the message, Park Jie-won got angry and chose to publicize the message at a parliamentary inspection of the government. Lee said “The message was misinterpreted because it missed the word ‘I.’” Both Park Jie-won, who publicized a message that can be considered very personal, and Lee, who hurriedly sent a message that could cause misunderstanding due to the omission of the subject, made mistakes in taking ill-advised actions. Had they had a phone conversation, their communication would not have caused trouble but text messaging did.

Unlike voice calls, text messages are kept as written records. People having extramarital affairs can get caught by their spouses because they sent secret text messages, resulting in divorce. The Seoul Family Court made rulings that if people exchange text messages reading “I love you” or “I missed you terribly though I met you only two days ago,” the messages could serve as legal grounds for divorce despite lack of other evidence of extramarital affairs. Mobile carriers do not keep text messages in their database. Such messages only remain in the user’s mobile phones, and if one fails to delete it, he or she should bear full responsibility. Just like forgetting is sometimes better than remembering, a thing that disappears like verbal dialogue could be better than something kept like text messages.

Editorial Writer Song Pyeong-in (pisong@donga.com)