Ok first off I have to say that English is not my first language and that I too, make grammar and spelling mistakes. Blogging is sort of an excuse for the writer in me to enjoy what I love without having to worry too much about language… you know since its a casual platform and I’m not aiming for any prizes! Sometimes we have to construct sentences in a certain way to grab the reader..

like this… a sentence on its own that’s, well, not really a sentence

With no punctuation and random BOLD and capital letters etc. BUT… I have a confession to make! 

I hate… Yes I said “hate” even though I don’t take that word lightly… Absolutely hate abbreviations. Not the standard ones included in the English dictionary, those I actually love. They make life easier. I’m talking about the ever growing list of words people make up because 

• They’re lazy
• They think its cool
• They have no cooking clue how to spell and they don’t want people to notice
• They have no idea why they are doing it and their answer is “because” everybody else is doing it” (seriously?) 

I am talking of slang abbreviations used in social media. Ok yes I confess to using “lol” (“laugh out loud” for those who know how to write properly) a lot just because “ha ha ha” is not really better in my opinion… There’s use for abbreviations and yes, why not add a few more to the English dictionary as we evolve? Like “lol”… Lol! 

It’s not that I’m too old for this. I get it. I really do. For those who don’t know, texting in abbreviations started out with the introduction of Mixit. When it started out people didn’t have smart phones yet, they had to press one button multiple times to get different letters and even though we were pretty good at it, it made sense to have abbreviated words. It was the only way to have an actual chat otherwise it would rather have been delayed letters. Imagine this:

Hey what are you up to? I am going to have coffee now.

Hey, nothing much, let me join you, going to make coffee…

Uh sorry I already finished mine…

Yep… Thats how long it took to write a text. But we’re not in the ‘olden days’ anymore. A lot of us have smart phones and Facebook now. Our texts don’t have limited characters per text anymore, we are free to write properly! 

I have actually almost used some of the abbreviations before and as I wrote it, deleted it again thinking, “What are you doing? Take the extra second and write the words out properly!” If you can’t write properly fast enough, you are behind my friend, we are waaay past brick phones… I am actually writing this article on my smartphone right now. 

My problem is not with the use of slang abbreviations here or there to make a point or get a short message across quickly, my problem is:

• The construction of whole sentences containing only abbreviations 
• Abbreviations that makes no sense whatsoever to the reader, hip or not, that are only made up efforts to proper communication.

There are lists on the internet you can look up to see what these existing abbreviations are, but some people don’t even get those right and try to make up their own abbreviations… What’s up with that? 

So I found a list of widely used slang abbreviations, some of which I actually find useful but most of which I just wish people would use instead of a made up language they can only use to communicate with themselves, for people like me who wish they didn’t have to know this language but needs to in order to communicate with some of the people in our lives.

Moms of teens I actually feel sorry for you because if you have teens, chances are you have to read texts like these daily wether you want to or not! Maybe you even start to feel the urge to USE THEM!!!

If you have been using abbreviated language for too long and can’t write in proper English anymore, get help as soon as possible from your nearest bookstore… Liberate yourself by getting  yourself a dictionary! 

Thts al fks pls dnt kll me if y txt lk ths ts al 4 te fn of it! 

See how annoying that is? Lol! (Yeah I may have to focus on using lol less… Oops!) 

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Click here for the magic list of abbreviated language!