OMG. This is OOMWPP, BTW. Why do we AENAD? In MOO, using TL outside of TM is SNF.
Translation: Oh my goodness. This is one of my worst pet peeves, by the way. Why do we abbreviate everything nowadays? In my own opinion, using texting lingo outside of text messages is so not funny.
Before I begin my non-abbreviated diatribe against using texting lingo in everyday communication, I will admit that it does serve a purpose in 160-character-limit text messages. The 14 fewer characters in JK BTW versus “just kidding, by the way” can prove quite helpful.
As the name suggests, however, “texting lingo” is for texts and should be avoided entirely in every other other form of communication.
Facebook posts cut off at 1,000 characters, which is more than enough room to spell out every “by the way,” “oh my goodness” and “laughing out loud” for your friends and stalkers to see. Facebook messages have no limit at all, and neither do good old-fashioned e-mails, unless you can fill 10 MB with text. Conversations, especially, are no place for keypad acronyms.
My critics might point out that as an English major and copy editor I am predisposed to hate all abbreviations and deviations from strict grammatical and syntactical standards. I must admit that I edit billboards for word choice and menus for comma splices, and that my MLA style sensors go on emergency alert with the first spelling mistake in an e-mail.
But my own idiosyncracies aside, there are more important reasons why I am so frustrated with the proliferation of texting lingo outside of texts. To me, OMGs, JKs and LOLs on Facebook, blog posts and – worst of all – in conversations, suggest a disintegrating concern for language and personal communication. An LOL in an e-mail only serves to remind me that I am talking to a computer screen. A BTW dropped in a face-to-face conversation makes whoever I’m talking to a cell phone screen.
If we allow it to seep into our writings and conversations, texting lingo may spell an imminent linguistic and social decay in society. We may forget how to spell and how to construct a complete sentence, and the English language will be reduced to a set of capital letters strung together (or lowercase letters if we can’t be bothered to hit the shift key). We ourselves will become walking Blackberries and iPhones, who laugh in obnoxious LOLs and express ourselves in digitized emoticons.
Does this mean that I will refuse to respond to Facebook posts and e-mails that include the dreaded texting lingo and run away at the first sign of it in a conversation? Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.
JK, not really. 🙂
