Articles and Stories

May 17, 2013

To keep in touch with teenagers on a daily basis and whose online activities need monitoring, I had to get into the whole texting and Twitter world. With the inconvenience of a phone keyboard to serve as an actual keyboard and with the 140-character limit, abbreviations are crucial… and create a whole new language. A language that can be read quickly if one is familiar with the acronyms, but not out loud, one that requires translation into English many times, but that language is understood across borders once the meaning is established.

Here are some of the more common ones:

BC = Because or be cool
BF = Boyfriend
BFF = Best friend forever
GF = Girlfriend
BRB = Be right back
DH = Dear husband (I have never seen that in use before though)
GTG = Got to go
IKR = I know, right?
JK = Just kidding
K = for those times ‘OK’ is too long
L8R = Later
LOL = Laugh out loud, no longer lots of love, sorry
NM = Never mind
<3 = sideways heart for love
PAW = Parents are watching
TTYL = Talk to you later
WBU = What about you
WU = What’s up?
YOLO = You only live once (previously: Carpe diem)
LMAO = Laughing my *** off — very popular among young teens
And last but not least:
YAA = Yet another acronym! OMG!

As one might be able to see from these acronyms, they can easily lead to misunderstandings. Not only because of the different possibilities in interpretation, but also because of the missing mimics and tone of voice that is related to communications with others. Our media gurus came up with a solution for is problem, one that never requires translation, nor the use of different characters (though cultural adjustments might be suggested as appropriate): emoticons!

For more, but never a complete list of abbreviations go to:
http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/textmessageabbreviations.asp

GTG, TTYL J