That reminds me of a story my father showed me, which I believe he learned in the 30s:

Customer: FUNEX?
Waiter: OS,VFX
Customer: FUNEM?
Waiter: OS,VFM
Customer: OK,IFMNX

I've never been able to decide whether the characters should have Yiddish accents or not. "OK,IFMNX" sounds so Yiddish to me (as does "V" for "we"), despite the traif subject matter.

It reminds me of the push to get ebonics into the schools.

"ABCD puppies?"
"LMNO puppies."
"OSMR puppies,
CMPN?"

I hate that crap, anyone who abbreviates things like "2" in place of the one-character-longer "to" should be shot for being such a lazy piece of crud. Oh well, that's how it's going to be, I suppose, before it's all over. Sure does suck, though.

The NYT had an interesting article in September 2002 concerning the growing use of SMS abbreviations into school assignments: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/19/technology/circuits/19MESS.html

Slashdot also referenced the above article, and chewed on things - http://slashdot.org/articles/02/09/19/157234.shtml?tid=146