SMS Speak and all that

This is from another thread:


What I should perhaps have said is " BTW, is nt CWG at lst as bd as sms spk 2 ?"

The point I was trying to make was that irritating as sms speak is, aren't not-widely-known abbreviations at least as irritating too? Like YMMV, IIRC, YYSSW, LMAO, ROFL, WAP and so on (including field-specific jargons).

A case in point (from the wikipedia article on SMS):

What is 'CEPT' ? It is not used anywhere else in the article!

Apparently some think that such abbreviations are more acceptable than sms speak. I, however, think they are much worse. The reason is, I can usually figure out what sms speak means, (that is if I bother to read it in the first place, which is not always, --- I get irritated by too many spelling mistakes even, and sms speak is a lot worse). However, I can rack my brain for ever, without being able to guess what 'CEPT' means, for example. I may not feel like googling always, and may just give up. If you think sms speak can be unintelligible to many people, I'd say such abbreviations can be unintelligible to most (including those who are comfortable with English).

So why don't we frown on all such abbreviations (including sms speak) in forums like this? Why is the latter singled out?

There are appropriate, clever, convenient txt abbreviations .... and then there are lazy, phonetic, truncated bastardizations of the english language. Some people don't seem to know the difference.

I think that puts it in a nutshell.
Personally, I do not mind the older Usenet stuff that you mention, but I avoid it in forums as I know some people don't understand it and others don't like it. There's a couple there I'd have to look up!

It seems that the Indian media is obsessed with abbreviations (OWA) and will mention them in passing even if the abbreviated phrase (AP) never gets used (NGU) again in the entire article.

DMM. (Drives me Mad)

Generally, what gets singled out here is not only SMS but chat-speak in general. Not only here: Team-BHP is very strict, and even forums that one might expect to have a phone wielding, game-playing, youthful audience, like SomethingAwful, discourage it. They had a great post on this, which I could never find since, that said something like, "don't sound like an 11-year-old!"

I only found out recently - on indiamike - what it stands for.

But I'm still not sure if I get what it means

All I can think is that it means 'you might disagree'. Well isn't that obvious? In a conversation, in life, other people might disagree ...






Apparently a sign that a person isn't internet-savvy (or maybe just old) is if they think WTF stands for Wednesday Thursday Friday

.... and there is WTF! & WTF????? ..... .....

Your experience may be different



WTF?

This is what i call entertainment.
WTF!

http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/YMMV/

WTF = what the f*ck
ymmv = your mileage may vary (also used for your results may vary)
IIRC = If I recall correctly(very commonly used)
LMAO = Laughing my Arse out
ROFL = rolling on the floor laughing
YYSSW = yeah yeah sure sure whatever
cept = ??

I actually laughed at Wednesday Thursday Friday.

So commonly used that I saw it for the first time when Nick mentioned it in the other thread (If I recall correctly)! And I was thinking if it could mean Incredible Internet Relay Chat, or something similar! I didn't feel any 'knowledgerush' to find out. I'd just ignore such abbreviations if I didn't get them. I doubt if that could be the users' intention.

Which brings me back to my point, -- I'd have made sense out of any sms speak quickly enough, irritated at the time or not!

Under development is a system that will give feedback about the state of your your body, for example to a mobile phone. I loved the headline to the article I read; it went something like:

O hai looks like ur hvg a <3 attack lolz.

See, it would have made perfect sense to me, sms speak or not (except for the lolz part, which I think is an abbreviation, for what? Laughing Out Loud, and then falling asleep?).

Actually, after working on Monday and Tuesday, even calendar says WTF, and it means both at that point of time...something like ..WTF...WTF more to go!

lol has become a noun, therefore one may have a plural, but the plural formed with a z is more trendy than that with a simple "s".

... Lolcat translator

And LOLcode is a whole new programing language

Here's lolcode.com

KTHXBYE