Dotty old message beats out teen texting

In a competition staged by an Australian museum, Hill, a telegraph operator since 1927, was pitted against 13-year-old Brittany Devlin in a battle of the messengers. Hill was armed with nearly a lifetime of experience using Morse code; Devlin, with two years of text messaging experience and a slew of slang popular with chronic texters. A sentence was chosen at random from a teen magazine, and both contestants had to transmit the message as quickly as possible.

The results might have some reconsidering the value of doing things the old way. Hill transmitted the complete message in 90 seconds, while Devlin used texting shorthand and finished sending her abbreviated message a full 18 seconds later. Hill then handedly defeated three other young foes armed with their mobile phones.

And what was the all-important message that was sent? "Hey, girlfriend, you can text all your best pals to tell them where you are going and what you are wearing." That's enough to make anyone wish they could go back to pre-texting days.