In the world of Web 2.0, LOLing at oneself is surely the first sign of madness
I’ve never been a huge fan of the acronym. Even as a child, it struck me as a lazy way of avoiding that extra syllable or two. Given my family’s penchant for post-dinner games, the word “syllable” has been as firmly engrained in my psyche as the words “Mum” and “Dad”.
“No, Rosemary, that’s two syllables – count them out.” Really, I could barely tie my own shoelaces. But I digress.
Fashion magazines have always been big fans of the acronym, or the word-shortening. The LBD is the most obvious (”little black dress” of which, according to Vogue, one can never have too many), but in recent times we’ve lost the run of ourselves altogether. The denim legging is the “jegging” (jean legging; something I refused to adopt, both in semantics and in my sartorial reality, until I realised that denim leggings are to plus-sized women what granny pants are to Bridget Jones), the shoe boot is the shoot, although I much prefer the bootie myself.
It just smacks of an incredible laziness, to be perfectly honest. Or else of succinctness, something else of which I’m not a fan, although I am learning to appreciate its more subtle nuances, having got involved, this week, in an email conversation with someone whose idea of an email conversation is two lines, and very little punctuation. I can only imagine what the suggestion of an emoticon would do to his sensibilities.
Why use 10 words when you can use three small letters? Because words have been invented to facilitate an ease of leaving, not to complicate an otherwise already complicated world. And letters are for sissies, and the army, two groups who are not as far removed from one another as you might initially suspect.
What’s my point? Don’t LOL at me when a “ha” will do. Don’t say things in all honesty (TBH). AFAIK may make sense, but by leaving it out you are therefore implying it; if you tell me something, it is always as far as you know, is it not? As for IMO, ditto. IMO (AFAIK), he who TBHs first, has the last LOL.
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1Annie
wrote on 10 January 2010 at 18:49
You know you’re in trouble when saying the acronym out loud uses up more syllables than saying the words themselves; like referring to “Where the Wild Things Are” as “WTWTA”. Fail.
2:->
wrote on 10 January 2010 at 21:03
AWGTHTGTTA? :-J
GIWIST – As they say GMTA but of course fools seldom differ…
IC wot u meen
KISS which means just rite wot u wanna say!
WYSIWYG, right?
BTW U no U R So Rite b/c FYI I hate that stuff 2.
BCNU CUL8R or as u say NN
RTFM: http://www.ibmwr.org/faq-files/acronyms.shtml
3rosemary
wrote on 10 January 2010 at 21:07
Annie, I guess I understand that only when people are writing it. I’ve never heard someone say WTWTA, in which case they would definitely deserve a smack. But I have heard people say LOL, which makes no sense as you’re supposed to just, eh, laugh.
:-> (if that is your real name), my brain hurts.
4jaboopee
wrote on 10 January 2010 at 22:33
speaking of parents and acronyms ….you’ve reminded me of something…..
my parents , kevin and laura, married in 1951, my father had the acronymn for ‘I Love Laura ‘ engraved on the FRONT on his cignet ring…
‘ILL’ isn’t necessarily the romantic wedding ring inscriptions that was intended , but we knew…..they got married on valentines day for gawds sake ( FGS)
5:->
wrote on 10 January 2010 at 22:55
L8R! NN
6UnaRocks
wrote on 11 January 2010 at 10:02
RE: the webspeak stuff, as opposed to the amalgamated words. On a surface level, isn’t ’saying’ webspeak just irony/post-sarcasm? I don’t think people genuinely say ‘LOL’ out loud without it being layered in cynicism.
Depper that that, it’s semantics rather than linguistics, no? Using something that is written in online communication (like ‘LOL’) as part of a spoken conversation is just a ‘knowing’ indicator… As in, saying ‘LOL’ is probably more about ‘I am indicating that this is funny to me on some level’ as opposed to a reactionary laugh.
In proxemical terms, the displacement of language and elements in conversation usually used in a different space (online) to ‘real life’ (or should I say, RL) is really interesting. It shows that people are legitimising their social interaction online to the point of including its vocabulary in their RL conversations.
BRB
7UnaRocks
wrote on 11 January 2010 at 10:04
(I typed ‘depper’ instead of ‘deeper’)
8:->
wrote on 11 January 2010 at 14:33
@ UnaRocks: WTF?