As communication via keyboard becomes a keystone in peoples’ modern lives, so too, does this peculiar written dialect.

Acronyms and abbreviations have for a long while been a part of life: SCUBA, NASA; Attn, etc… etc. So it’s fair to say that there’s nothing wrong with today’s youth inventing an entirely new vernacular based around acronyms and abbreviations, right?

Don’t know if I’d agree.

The human desire for convenience and simplicity is a powerful thing. We want, we need life to be simple. We don’t want to have to do more than is required of us, that would be a waste of energy. Is it that we believe that because we put in the hard yards as kids, being picked on at school, going through puberty, having our hearts broken by the girl/boy of our dreams along with myriad other shitty situations, now, as adults, we are entitled to ease of life..? Really? Entitle yourself to this. Worse still, as our current generation of youth grow into over-sized soft-cocks, it is clear that they no longer want to have to work for anything; they actually expect everything to be handed to them and what’s more, they expect it now.

So when it comes to written communication, obviously, with 26 letters in the alphabet, 5 of which are vowels and 1 which likes to masquerade as such, we are not short on selection. It was established, presumably by a group of prepubescent girls some years ago, that vowels in written vernacular are a largely extraneous inclusion. Given that every word has at least one of these – if you include the travesty – you’ve just shortened every wrd in the English language. Good work. Then, perhaps these same girls, realised that a lot of the remaining consonants were also a waste of time. Do we really need two consecutive Ls in the word silly? There’s only one G in ragamuffin, so why would you need two Ls in rapscallion? Thus we have sntnces wit wrds tht look as tho they’ve bin mutilatd by n eraser-wielding, literary psychopath.

Possibly the most troubling aspect of this phenomenon though, is the list of abbreviations that some genius compiled in order to shorten some of the more commonly uttered phrases. Put that together with your jumble of vowel-less, shortened words and what do you have? An incongruous, largely incomprehensible statement, where the effort saved by the author is put directly onto the recipient as effort expended in deciphering the garbled piece of crap.

Example given: hay bro wot up jst gaan fir crus wnna cum lol cors u do ud hv 2 gt pimssn frm ol ldy 1st lol iv jst bin slipn tho lol so gime 10 lol no $ atm etha…

WTF? Who really Laughs Out Loud that much, and at themselves? That was just confusing. Even more asinine is the pillocks who think they’re being clever by changing the configuration of a word to make it look more how it sounds, but end up making the word longer than the genuine spelling. In a delightful combination of written abbreviation mixing with articulation: “Oh and, B-T-W…”

By The Way has three syllables. B-T-W has five. You’re going against everything you believe in and making work for yourself. IDK…

BTW, IMAO there has to be worse things to have happened to the English language in the past 100 years than a bunch of nonsensical abbreviations being thrown around a page or screen; so when I locate them, I’ll be sure to document them in full.

Nice one.

Article by Mit Reklaw

Photography by O. Raiter

Edited by B. A. Wuurd-Smith