Gizmodo
The life of 20-year-old Emine, and her 24-year-old husband Ramazan Çalçoban was pretty much the normal life of any couple in a separation process. After deciding to split up, the two kept having bitter arguments over the cellphone, sending text messages to each other until one day Ramazan wrote "you change the topic every time you run out of arguments." That day, the lack of a single dot over a letter—product of a faulty localization of the cellphone's typing system—caused a chain of events that ended in a violent blood bath (Warning: offensive language ahead.)
The surreal mistake happened because Ramazan's sent a message and Emine's cellphone didn't have an specific character from the Turkish alphabet: the letter "ı" or closed i. While "i" is available in all phones in Turkey—where this happened—the closed i apparently doesn't exist in most of the terminals in that country.
The use of "i" resulted in an SMS with a completely twisted meaning: instead of writing the word "sıkısınca" it looked like he wrote "sikisince." Ramazan wanted to write "You change the topic every time you run out of arguments" (sounds familiar enough) but what Emine read was, "You change the topic every time they are fucking you" (sounds familiar too.)
Emine then showed the message to her father, who—enraged—called Ramazan, accusing him of treating his daughter as a prostitute. Ramazan went to the family's home to apologize, only to be greeted by the father, Emine, two sisters and a lot of very sharp knives.
Injured and bleeding, with a knife on his chest, Ramazan tried to escape. Emine was still trying to finish him on the door, but he managed to take the knife out of his chest and attacked back, wounding her. Ramazan finally escaped, and was caught by the police, but Emine bleed to dead as the family waited for an ambulance to cross Ankara's hellish traffic to reach their home.
Confused by all the events, he later killed himself in jail.
Apparently it's not the first incident of this kind caused by the damned dot on top of the letter i. The local press has pointed out that the faulty localization of cellphones in Turkey is causing "serious problems" when it comes to certain "delicate words" in Turkish, and they are calling to enhance localization of technology to avoid these mistakes.
Alternatively, the press could ask for banning knives from the homes of demonstrably stupid people. [Hurriyet—in Turkish—thanks to our Turkish-speaking readers for the corrections]
Comments
A good arguement for NOT texting. Call and say what you mean, dont hide behind your QWERTY.
Even then, dont do it over the phone.
There is an awsome thing called real life.
They failed Darwin?
Damn, I should be careful next time I text a girl she's a "slutty bıtch". That single dot could literally KILL me!
You know, at this point, I'm not sure how much of the blame goes to what letters are or are not available...fixing the phone globalization problem is probably not going to make too much of a dent in the "preventable homicide" column...
On a related note, Quentin Tarantino is already on a flight to turkey to secure the movie rights.
dots apart, this is a sad sad tale
so they're blaming this on a friggin dot? whatever happened to just fuckin crazy??
That's why you need to finish him off. You don't let me wander away bleeding. Cmone dad. Jeez. try a little follow-through.
@desostros: Yes, because trying to solve the problem in real life went so well.
I dont think the phone is to blame as much as the father WHO STABBED A MAN for insulting his wife - who he is divorcing. If saying mean things to your ex was cause for murder, the U.S. population would be about 10% of what it is now.
@Curves: Agreed.
Childish result of childish behavior.
WTF this is seriously fucked up...
Your teachers always said to dot your i's and cross your t's. Now that life lesson comes back to haunt one rebellious student.
Sounds like they need to change their language.
In a world where ultra realistic video games and movies blamed violence, this proves that a good old text adventure can be just as deadly.
@icelight: Thanks for backing that up :)
Now only if teenage girls would go around killing...IDK, their BFF Jill? Stupid, annoying teen girls would finally be under control.
But RLY, this can all be avoided if you actually act like a civilized person and not a politician with an agenda.
@JESUS, WTF man are you reading HURRIYET??? seriously I`m wondering how you got this news...
Well, I am Turkish, and I use English keyboard, and I have this problem everyday on IM... the dot makes a huge difference really
"i" shot the sheriff, but "i" did not shoot the deputy!
Guns don't kill people "i" do.
@blazedshaggy: no.
@blazedshaggy: Oh no!
I guess you could blame the technology, but the phones didn't force them to commit murder. Their stupid reactions of violence did.
I agree that the father ıs the maın problem here, but you've got to be suspıcıous of a language ın whıch "runnıng out of arguments" and "having sex" are such close words.
(typed on an Englısh keyboard)
@GOKOR: Is it as slow over there today as it's been lately? :(
yay for population control :D
it's all part of the master plan...
Sorry I don't think the problem here is the SMS system, but the fact that these people were willing to seriously injure someone based on something that was (supposedly) said. There are batshit crazy people everywhere.
@DeadWriter: username point in case.
Wait......the headline reads. "A Cellphone's Missing Dot Kills Two People, Puts Three More in Jail". It should have read. "Ignorant populations shouldn't have acces to technology".
Suspicious? I was thinking "solution."
and remember kids, always practice safe text with your partners...
@theespacepope: Totally agree with you there.
dots over i's don't kill people, misinformed turkish families kill people.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." In these people's case their toaster oven is the frigging messiah.
lol wow...i hope they add that turkish letter to cell phones...
and yeah, i'm kind of on boat with what desostros said. My only question is, what happened? the guy didnt have that letter, so he used another which threw the whole thing completely out of context (which it sounds like he knew), but sent it anyway? if you literally cant send the message, then dont. i dont know if sending the message via computer to cellphone would have made any difference...but he shouldnt have taken the chances and just told her. besides, what he WANTED to say wasn't the worst thing you could say to someone.
And on the other end of the evolutionary spectrum, the mute swan watches in amusement, happy to have chosen its long neck over written language in the grab bag of adaptive traits.
That's fucking hysterical...I mean, sad and tragic...not hysterical.
The turks really need to come up with some coping techniques as a people. Very angry folk.
I blame AT&T. I mean, 59.95 for 300 TXT messages? They're totally "sikisinceing" me...
Its enough to make me want to stab my father-in-law several times. Totally understandable.
A similar thing happened to my brother and his wife; he went to text her "what do you feel like having for dinner?" and instead came out "are you still having that gang bang with those 7 Haitian dudes you picked up at the dock you cumdumpster?"
Simple mistake really. The keys on the iPhone with their "auto-correct" feature can really screw you if you're not paying attention.
By the way, does anyone else think its amazing that they have cell phones in Turkey? I mean wow!
And another think, if his name was Ramazan he was surely a magician and should have been good with knife tricks.
Thats all I got folks. It was a long weekend. Ciao.
In other news... O.J. Simpson announced plans to start a new company called The Text Message Response Team.
dot's are always a touchy issue with girls. I generally call the periods tho....
Yo quit with the racism, I'm Turkish and I ALSO think these people are fucked up. There are insane people in every country.
@Deadwriter: Excellent point
@strider_mt2k: Yes it is...plus I didn't sleep last night so I'm a bit cynical and irritable.
In case you haven't noticed by today's posts. LOL.
@Darrone:Best comment ever.
When will these people learn to handle problems in a civilized manner, like we do here in the Western world? By shooting people.
File under 'Signs Your Language Needs Some Better Character Differentiation' and 'Signs Your Alphabet Needs Modernization'.
How many people must die before written language is dissected and made so that potentially life threatening words do not look similar to words that will just make you sleep on the couch? Do we have to join hands or get a celebrity to endorse this cause there are too many dots being put at the end of people's lives.
@jrghoull:
Agreed... He HAD to have known he couldn't type the letter he wanted, and had to have known the difference it made and yet he sent it with out further clarification.
Stupid is as stupid does...
"."
sikisinca and sikisince...it seems like he also mistakenly added an E instead of an A? So isn't it not just the dot part's fault?
I blame predictive text also (at least with my old phone). One time I wanted to text my wife "leaving for home", it ended up typing "leaving for good".
Beyond everything, I think most people here, there or anywhere miss the point. Words only have the power that you give them. Insults can only affect you if you let the words get to you. If you take away the power of anyone to insult you with their words and their hatred, they can't hurt you (at least not mentally and spiritually).
Is a sad, sad world that we live into, when we let words became enough of a reason to kill somebody.
GOD have mercy on us!!!
Missed periods have caused problems for many couples.
Talk about not dotting every I and crossing every T before sending out a serious message...
@DCGaymer: Do you mean cell phones or knives?
Knives are easy. The skill is to be able to kill someone with a dull spoon.
@DeadWriter: Heehee!
@nikko1221: That one was really good.
@ellopr: Says you shithead.
In my country shithead means your mind is fertile, as shit is the thing we use to fertilize the soil during the early spring. Don't judge me Western pig! Western Pigs are our gods here.
@ellopr: So in other words, "Sticks and stones..."
Correct punctuation can be vital:
Missed periods are known for causing problems.
I know a guy who had his colon removed. He now has a semicolon but can still eat carets.
His sister Tilde is a writer who had been in a car crash. She's been in a a comma ever since. Unrelated, but she lost her hyphen when she was 16.
It's enough to give you a stroke.
I gotta dash outta here and pound one out. Period.
@wilsonma29: Ooooh! What movie did that quote come from?
"What are you going to do? Spoon me to death?"