text
People say text to mean written words, messages, or the act of sending a short message on a phone. It is the ordinary stuff of books, emails, and conversation.
What a model may hear
- plain text file computing, file systems
- assume a .txt file with no formatting, no images, no markup
- text data type databases, programming
- treat the input as a string of characters, not numbers or dates
- text message or SMS telecommunications
- expect 160-character limits, phone numbers, or gateway protocols
- text node in markup HTML, XML, document models
- parse for tags, entities, and structure, not just words
- machine learning text corpus NLP, AI training
- tokenize, embed, or classify the input as training or inference data
Where people and models part ways
“Send me the text”
Meant: Give me the written words of something
May be taken as: Assume a .txt file attachment or SMS delivery
Say instead: “Send me the written words in a document I can read”
“This is just text”
Meant: There is nothing special here, just words
May be taken as: Strip all formatting, convert to raw ASCII, or reject for lacking structure
Say instead: “This is plain writing without special formatting”
“Text me the answer”
Meant: Message me with the answer, any way you like
May be taken as: Try to use SMS protocol or demand a phone number
Say instead: “Message me the answer here”
“Save this as text”
Meant: Keep a copy of these words
May be taken as: Save as .txt losing all line breaks, bullets, or bold
Say instead: “Save this with its formatting preserved”
Tips
- Say plain text when you mean no formatting at all
- Say rich text or document when you want bold, lists, or styles kept
- Say message or write back when you do not mean SMS
- Say string or characters when speaking to code about data types
- Specify the file format if it matters: .txt, .docx, .md
Often confused with
- string
- a programming data type, not natural language
- copy
- can mean ad text or duplicate action
- content
- broader, includes images and video
- script
- executable code, not just words
- markdown
- a specific lightweight markup format
- SMS
- a specific phone messaging protocol