Saying Texting Abbreviations Aloud

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Melissa from Littleton, New Hampshire.

Hi, Melissa, welcome.

Hey, how you doing? What’s up?

Yeah, I was calling because I love your show, first of all. Thank you.

I had a question about texting in everyday language.

So I catch myself using NBD, oh, that’s TMI, or BRB all the time.

And it’s quite humorous to me, but my question is what your thoughts were on how we’ve evolved into using abbreviations in everyday language and texting in general.

So you use this all the time in your daily life?

At a business meeting or in conversations with friends or home?

No, way more casual.

With business associates, it’s more off the cuff in a joking manner.

It just seems like a very funny thing that NBD has the same amount of syllables as no big deal, yet I’ll catch myself doing that.

And I know other people that will use it in casual conversation all the time.

Not really on a business sense right now, but it’s just kind of funny.

Oh, yeah.

So it’s going to be an interesting question.

So you’re calling because you feel a little bit like maybe you shouldn’t do that?

Not necessarily.

I’m calling because it’s funny to me that where has our language come from?

Are we going to continue to abbreviate?

How far down can we abbreviate?

It was more of just something really funny I thought of, and I wanted to get your take on it.

That’s a good question.

There’s one thing that I want you to take away from us, one important thing, which is language things are weird while they’re new.

And once we grow used to them, we wonder how we did without them.

For example, in business, we have a zillion acronyms like initialisms.

It’s like CC and ASAP and things like that.

And those are completely ordinary now, right?

Or WRT.

Yeah, well, if you look at IOU, like IOU money, that goes back to 1618 at least.

It’s handy, right?

It makes perfect sense.

So there’s a second thing here, which is a little less important, but also worth mentioning.

We play with a language.

That is part of what makes language work.

If you don’t have a playful spirit about language, then your language probably is not that great.

You’re probably not a very good speaker or writer or reader, that sort of thing.

And playing with language by using acronyms and initialisms in places that they don’t belong is part of that.

And it brings a vitality and liveliness to your spoken language.

You mentioned texting specifically.

And I’m thinking that some of the text-isms are actually things that are older in text.

They are.

Yeah, many of them are.

Many of them we think is new, and they’re not.

Yeah.

They’re just simply in a new medium.

No, and I thought of that as well because I may have used when I was a kid,

Oh, are you going to be my BFF today for best friend?

Exactly.

But that’s older, and now before there was texting, and now there’s texting.

So I do agree.

It’s just kind of one of those playful things, I guess.

Yeah, it’s playful, and I encourage it as long as the situation is correct.

And you may actually find that it will ease a business meeting.

You might find that a slightly lower register of language can make people a little more comfortable as long as you’re not dropping them every other word.

I was wondering if you use OMG because that one seems self-conscious to me.

That one is a little played out.

I’m not going to lie.

I will get even more playful with these and I’ll say OMGG if I’m really trying to separate.

I like that.

I’m telling you, I think it’s funny and how I will use them in everyday language,

Probably mostly to make my friends laugh and to give myself a little chuckle.

There’s a third thing that I want you to take away.

We know from what happened during the telegraph era that most of this shorthand language doesn’t last.

Very little of it sticks and remains a permanent part of English.

But when we look at the influence of texting on language,

What we find most of all is that these abbreviations and initialisms and acronyms are going away.

And the answer is very prosaic.

The reason this is happening is very simple.

It’s because our technology is getting better.

Our typing on small keyboards is improving.

The software is guessing better.

We are all becoming better typists in general.

And we’re finding even things like the input field, where we put the words, is larger and easier to use.

Therefore, we don’t have to abbreviate.

And so we don’t.

We just write plain, normal English more often now than we did 10 years ago.

I’d hate to see lol leave the language, though.

I mean, I don’t say it out loud, though.

Except for lolcats.

Some people say lol out loud.

That sounds weird.

I say raffle.

I say raffle for sure.

I was raffling over that, rolling on the floor laughing.

Yeah, raffle copier.

That’s awesome.

Yeah.

Hey, Melissa, thanks a lot for calling.

Thanks for having me.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Okay, BRB.

Bye.

Bye.

877-929-9673.