Acronyms
This celebrity (Kyra Sedgwick) was talking on Conan a couple of nights ago about how she doesn’t understand text messaging in general, specifically the acronyms in use by today’s youth. (As a side note, I do note understand text messaging for two reasons: (1) cost of it stateside and (2) the absolutely atrociously horridly awful method for entering in words using a keypad designed for dialing numbers. Both problems have been solved over in Japan (who is generally about 14 months ahead of us in cell phone technology), so I would expect text messaging to seem like a more viable option for real communication in the next couple of years). Anyhow, this actress said that she always thought that the abbreviation “lol” stood for “lots of love.” So, she’d send a text message to her kids using the abbreviation her way. For example: “great job at the soccer game tonight! lol.”
While we’re on the topic of text messaging, I should point out a recent “Tip of the Day” in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, titled “Netlingo.” Naturally, having a fair bit of experience with the internet (intertubes) since ‘round about 1998, I scanned the short article. The idea of it was to alert clueless parents to these apparently ridiculously arcane acronyms. First, the reasonable ones: “If you are lingering, your child may end up being forced to use these acronyms instead: POS (parent over shoulder), PIR (parent in room), P911 (parent alert)… ” Now, POS is more commonly known as “piece of shit” — as in, “my car is a POS.” And P911 could simply be a bathroom emergency. Then again, those were the good ones. The article goes on to outline risque abbreviations, with the undertone that online predators will be using them to lure children: IWSN (I want sex now), NIFOC (nude in front of computer), and this gem, NALOPKT (not a lot of people know that).
Now, I am 150% in favor of parents combating online predators in absolutely any way they can. But if they’re at the point where they are trying to decipher dialog between some random online person and their child, they missed a few steps along the way. Furthermore, these acronyms are ridiculous. Who in their right mind will find they need to abbreviate “not a lot of people know that”? Who would even understand that? What the heck? It’s not an acronym worth knowing if nobody knows about it. Matt and I, when we were quite young, used to make up these acronyms all the time, and not to alienate parents… it was poking fun at the proliferation of abbreviations at the time. For example:
amicek 6/8/2000 9:48 PM what if we used abbreviations for everything? - so my last statement would be like this: wh w usd abbrev f ev? - s m la sta w b li dis
d r o g e 6/8/2000 9:49 PM i wo ge cnfs ng
amicek 6/8/2000 9:50 PM i dn ink dat u wou gt cfsed - its ju hd t wte ds wy
d r o g e 6/8/2000 9:50 PM ok can’t read it, let’s type nrml
Enough of the acronym wars, kids are always going to be differentiating themselves from their parents using their own words, phrases, abbreviations, tools, dress, and etc. Whatever is going on with the acronyms, it doesn’t merit a sidebar in the paper.
Comments
Richard Roche
either those acronyms are made up, or i’m already out of touch with today’s youth.
Dan McKeown
Since the Pioneer Press is a leader in journalistic quality I have to believe those acronyms are 100% legitamate.
Nils
I hate those acronyms. More broadly, I hate all of these pointless, senseless, juvenile abbreviations that have been spawned through text messages and AIM. What a watering down of language. I do think, however, that it is part of a trend that began in the earlier part of the 20th century. In my journalism class in 2004, we examined presidential speeches from the early 1800s to today, spanning presidents like Lincoln, Roosevelt (first and second), JFK, and our beloved George W. Bush. The well articulated prose and educated use of the English language began to depreciate significantly starting around the 1930s as visuals and images began to take on more importance. At least until recently, we still used words. Now we have bastardized language to the point of not even using words. I think it’s kind of sad.