"Yo what's up? how bout those rams. *grin*. erm, gotta run, ttyl :]"

Words to this effect, or lack of effect, are gaining currency as more and more people find themselves hooked on the biggest stimulus to small talk since coffee: instant messaging. Content-free, off-the-top-of-the-head, formulaic exchanges are nothing new in themselves. What is new -- and experts warn that it could have revolutionary consequences for the language -- is the medium.

Not so long ago, "shooting the breeze" was a purely verbal phenomenon. One used it in passing, greeting someone in the street or waiting for an elevator. There was no need to compose sentences or worry about grammar, since the words evaporated as soon as uttered -- and anyway, things had to be kept snappy if one were to get a word in edgewise or not be labeled an ear-basher. Nobody thought to write any of it down. When someone did, like James Joyce recording for posterity the street and pub patter of turn-of-the-century Dublin, the man was deemed a genius. ("Phenomenon!" his Dubliners would have snorted just hearing the word. "The fat heap he married is a nice old phenomenon with a back on her like a ballalley.")