Proto-SMS

While pondering whether the word 'role' should have a circumflex or not (personally, I'm all for it), I found an interesting entry on the subject at answers.com, reproduced below:

In English the circumflex, like other diacriticals, is sometimes retained on loanwords that used it in the original language; for example, rôle. In Britain in the eighteenth century, which was before the cheap penny post and a era in which paper was taxed, the circumflex was used in postal letters to save room in an analogy with the French use. Specifically, the letters "ugh" were replaced when they were silent in the most common words, e.g., "thô" for "though", "thorô" for "thorough", and "brôt" for "brought" - a precursor of the ways in which trendy young people nowadays abbreviate text messages. This could have led to spelling simplification, but did not.

The bit that's really fascinating is the stuff about its use as a shorthand in letters. The resemblance to SMS is uncanny. Now, of course, diacritics are rapidly being shed from words, even at the expense of sense or correct pronunciation, their shorthand rôle being assumed by emoticons. For an interesting hypothesis on the future development of the English language click here.