I just cannot take the teen-speak at times

[MonkeyPie]

I will admit that I type "lol" and "omg" to sometimes extreme measures, but when I am being serious (and not acting like a dork for fun, which I do a lot), I can spell and type like an adult. But sometimes the way people type really gets to me. For example - a new mom talking about giving birth and her new baby, and every other word is "omgz" and "sucky suck". (I won''t mention where I found a post like this, because it''s obviously just the way she talks all the time, and she''s obviously VERY young. And this isn''t a direct attack against her, because bless her heart, she has the most adorable baby!)

I am seriously feeling old right now because this bugs me lol. It''s one of the reasons I prefer this forum to any other, because I can avoid the people that cannot spell and type ridiculous things like "I got ganked."

 

[strmrdr]

rad dewwwwdette!!
hehehehehe

They will grow out of it, everyone goes through that stage sheeshish im still in it :}

I use rad, dude, deewwdette kewl, kicken,beans, kewl beans,ban beans, yeppers, nopers, yeppers peppers, suxors, thats a woofer, throw it in the bit bucket, and worst of all say "go fish" when someone asks me a stupid question I don't feel like answering and many many many more.

me no wanna grow up cuz ifin I did I no can be a toys'R'us squid.

 

[bobbin]

i dnt kno wot uz r talking bout.

R u jst jelos cos im totally cooler than u?

Omgz that is sooooo lame!

LOL.... just kidding!

 

[InLuv101]

Date: 11/6/2008 2:37:52 AM
Author: bobbin
i dnt kno wot uz r talking bout.

R u jst jelos cos im totally cooler than u?

Omgz that is sooooo lame!

LOL.... just kidding!

Too funny Bobbin!

 

[neatfreak]

I''m not old (mid 20''s) and it bothers the heck out of me too. You are not alone. Honestly, the few times when those type of posts show up here, I usually skip them because it makes my brain hurt to try and read them.

 

[Miranda]

Date: 11/6/2008 2:37:52 AM
Author: bobbin
i dnt kno wot uz r talking bout.

R u jst jelos cos im totally cooler than u?

Omgz that is sooooo lame!

LOL.... just kidding!

Haha! When I get a txt like this from my son I tell him to call me so we can use real words! What is Omgz? I know OMG...The z stumps me! I''m not very good with slang. I still say, "Yo!" And get crazy looks from the kids.

 

[doodle]

I''m about to be 25. My siblings are 23, 22, 20, 19, and three that are 17 (my parents are both divorced and remarried, so I have a LOT of siblings!). ANYWAY, even with that little age difference between all of us, I almost never have a clue what the heck they''re talking about. My youngest sister actually said "ILY" once to me in a face to face conversation. I thought she said "really" so I said "yeah, that''s right". She was highly offended that I didn''t say, "I love you, too"

As for me, I''m bad about the OMG and WTF, but I make it a point to never add "izzle" to anything I say, so at least I''m ahead of my brother!

 

[Lauren8211]

Hahahah.

It doesn''t bother me to see an OMG, LOL, IRL, or BRB. Those are easy to decipher.

It''s the constant purposeful (I hope!) misspellings (ie - lolspeak) that drive me crazy. My personal pet peeve is "wat" for "what"

FF and I have been known to regularly say outloud "IDK, my BFF Jill?"

 

[dragonfly411]

I think we are the folks who would fall into the " I read Eats shoots and leaves 5 times and cherish every word of it" . I can''t stand it. I use some of them simply out of convenience. But I cannot stand the idea of articulating completely through these.... abbreviations? The commercial with the girl " Idk my bff jill?" drives me CRAZY

 

[Erin]

My girlfriend is 30 and she''ll text nething instead of anything. You know, like N-E-thing? So I''m confused and think it''s nething or Nothing and it changes the meaning of the sentence (or at least almost sentence). C''mon! You saved one freakin letter to confuse the crap outta me.

Yes, I use the word freakin...

 

[sunnyd]

Date: 11/6/2008 2:34:58 PM
Author: dragonfly411
I think we are the folks who would fall into the '' I read Eats shoots and leaves 5 times and cherish every word of it'' . I can''t stand it. I use some of them simply out of convenience. But I cannot stand the idea of articulating completely through these.... abbreviations? The commercial with the girl '' Idk my bff jill?'' drives me CRAZY

I love that commercial! And its variation, ''IDK, my BFF Rose?'' LOL, go granny!

 

[AmberWaves]

Ugh, I had a friend who was a high school teacher, and even though she knew better, she''d always send emails with no punctuation, nor capitalization and would often say, "i m telling u that..." I couldn''t stand it. I told her that as an ENGLISH teacher, she should try to grasp the concept of correct spelling and punctuation. We''re no longer friends, so whooohoooo on that.

One of my biggest pet peeves is "prolly" instead of "probably". How much harder is it to type the whole word?? And yes, I may be guilty of "brb" but that''s usually because I''m IMing at work, and my boss is creeping around and I need to tell my friend that I''ll be right back, before he sees what I''m doing!

 

[somethingshiny]

I completely understand. My sis is 18 and texts me the oddest messages. Then I have to call her and ask her to read it to me because I literally have no clue what she''s trying to convey. But, she thinks I''m nuts for typing entire words out in text messages. She laughs every time she receives one from me!

And, what gets me the most, is like the OP said-when it''s a serious conversation, could we address it in a serious manner??

 

[Keepingthefaith21]

It doesn't bother me too much when people use those weird pseudo-words when they are text messaging because some phones have limited charcters. When texting I am guilty of using some of the typical shortcuts. It's not because I am too lazy to type out my whole word, it's simply that I have a limited number of characters.

I have an acquaintance who uses all these ridiculous slang phrases, like "OMGZ" and "Preggers" in her blog! If you are taking the time to write a blog to update people on your life and times, is it really that difficult to say "pregnant" or "children" instead of saying, "we decided we want to have babies and are trying to get preggers"?!? I could not bring myself to take her blog seriously. I think she thought she was being "cute" but it's just not cute at all.

 

[MonkeyPie]

Date: 11/6/2008 2:37:52 AM
Author: bobbin
i dnt kno wot uz r talking bout.

R u jst jelos cos im totally cooler than u?

Omgz that is sooooo lame!

LOL.... just kidding!

BWAHAHA! Ok, this gave me a really good giggle lol. See, and I can use lol too!

I''m so glad I''m not the only one all revolted by grown people using stuff like this. I just have to wonder how much time it really saves!

 

[princesss]

This drives me CRAZY. Absolutely, completely batty. (I guess I fall into that "Reads Eats, Shoots and Leaves" 5 times a day group.)

The worst though, is that the sales rep for one of my accounts constantly uses it in e-mails to our customers, as does another customer service rep I sit by. They use it in business communication. They''re both over 25.

I refuse to text like that. I''ll use "lol" (and "omg" and "wtf" on occassion). I did see one girl use "OMG" in a paper for our linguistics class senior year of college. Yikes.

 

[kittybean]

Sometimes there are posts I just can''t read due to all the abbreviations, run-on sentences, and lack of capital letters. I spent many, many long hours correcting the tiniest writing errors as an editor on my school''s law review, and if I can''t take my red pen to the page or turn my "track changes" on, I start to go nuts. I definitely don''t blame the people who write like that; it''s just the influence of Internet culture. I blame myself for being a cite-checking, comma-loving, en-or-em-dash grammar freak.

Can I just say I loved Eats, Shoots & Leaves? I could have written the chapter on the greengrocer''s apostrophe.

 

[Haven]

My advice to you:

Do not become a high school teacher.

You will find yourself knee-deep in LOLs, ridiculous slang, and fashion that leaves little to the imagination.

I really don''t have a problem with teen-speak unless it''s being used in a formal situation. Work emails? Unacceptable. Text messages? Fine. I do not personally use it, but I find that unless the meaning is lost I don''t have a problem with it. (Just don''t write LOL in my classroom and we won''t have any problems.)

elle--My favorite student always says "IDK, my BFF Jill?" I had no idea what he was talking about until I saw the commercial, at which point I realized just how out of touch I really am.

 

[decodelighted]

So ... help me out then. What''s the latest way to say "cool"? Several variations would be ... uh ... cool.

 

[MonkeyPie]

Date: 11/6/2008 10:52:35 PM
Author: decodelighted
So ... help me out then. What''s the latest way to say ''cool''? Several variations would be ... uh ... cool.

LOL I still say cool.

 

[AdiS]

OK, now imagine English is not your native language.

Sometimes I spend 20 minutes trying to decipher posts like this (with all the omgz and stuff I mean). Boy, does it get confusing... lol

 

[Thomperchik]

Monkeypie - It''s funny that you mention this. I work in a very professional environment, but sometimes I get emails from "higher ups" with such abbreviations. It used to kill me, because I thought I graduated college for a reason... Apparently not! hehe...

 

[Elmorton]

I'm actually fascinated by teen-speak because I was using IM more than a phone by the time I was in 7th grade and I'd like to think that it was my generation that basically started this new chapter of slang language. Of course it bugs me when I have 18 year old college students e-mailing me with: "I missed class u told me to c u if I had ne ?" - for the exact reason that Haven said. In that situation, I'm not the student's peer, and this language is clearly intended for casual peer-to-peer usage. But otherwise, I like to see how people are playing with and tooling around with language. Plus, it's a good way to get my students talking when we discuss voice and language choice - they tend to get excited about this topic too.

But I would be pretty horrified if I saw it in a professional e-mail. YIKES!

Re: Cool

I hear "word" (ok...I use it, too) used a lot where I think people used to say "cool." In the usage where cool verifies your agreement with the speaker, people use "word" (a shortened version of "word up") instead. It started as being mostly a hip-hop usage but is definitely mainstream. "Fuh sho" (for sure) is another one used there.

In terms of a descriptor...I think "tight" (not tiiiiight, just tight) and "sweet" are on their way out, but are still used a little bit. I personally use "rockin" all the time, but I'm definitely less cool than my students, so I may be out of touch on that one. It can be harder to get teenagers to describe something positively, so I think I may hear that less often

Urbandictionary.com is full of a lot of raunchy words and ones that aren't really mainstream, but some good terms that are pretty common, too.

 

[FrekeChild]

Hee hee hee. I can''t stand it either. I''ll use OMG, WTF, BRB, LOL, LMAO, ROLFMAO, etc as well as the next teen, but I WOULD NEVER send that out in an email to a professor or in a professional setting. Most of the time I''ll use those abbreviations in IM or chat, but nothing else, well, besides here.

It is a huge pet peeve of FF''s, because he''ll receive emails full of "Wot did we do n clss 2day?" from students who are seniors in college. It drives him NUTS. I told him that he should say on the first day of class that they should write him emails like they would a paper, but he won''t listen to me.

I have a friend that writes like that in text messages too, and I have to sit down and actually decipher what the heck she''s saying when I get a text from her. Stuff like "U n me ned 2 gt 2gthr. I mss u." WTF is that?!

 

[doodle]

It bugs me because it''s "dumbing down" the language. We studied this in depth in linguistics when I was in college; English has more words dropping out of usage than it does being newly coined, so it''s a dying language just as Latin was. I think our culture''s obsession with making everything as quick and convenient as possible has contributed greatly to this. We just can''t be bothered to iterate a few extra syllables, so we communicate in symbols and almost completely nonsensical abbreviations...and don''t EVEN get me started on the influence of mainstream hip hop, etc. When "bling bling" and "bootylicious" can be found in the OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY...WTF?! Ha, I couldn''t resist using at least one, lol...okay, two...I''m done now.

 

[Haven]

Date: 11/7/2008 1:33:31 PM
Author: Elmorton
Re: Cool
It can be harder to get teenagers to describe something positively, so I think I may hear that less often

This is exactly what I thought when I first read Deco''s post--teenagers are far more likely to describe things negatively, so I had a very difficult time coming up with synonyms for "cool".

When I was teaching English at a community college one of my students sent me an email titled:
"Ma disk ain''t formatted"

He was trying to explain why he couldn''t print his paper out at school.

Hubby (then my boyfriend) was shocked when I told him about it. I thought it was hilarious. Inappropriate, but hilarious.

 

[MonkeyPie]

LOL Freke, I have a couple friends like that. I always type normal, even on my phone, so it bugs me to see others not doing it lol. Yeah, I am a bit anal, but come on..."wut" is no easier than "what"!

AdiS, I totally feel for you. It must be so annoying trying to read anything!

 

[katamari]

Big ditto to Haven and Freke. I teach college students and it became so bad that I have to have a clause in my syllabus that I will return all papers or e-mails that use text-speak and will not react to it until it is returned with correct grammar.

I guess the good news is that it is less common in my upper level classes, but sheesh. My big problem is the unprofessionalism. I have no problem with text-speak, per se, but just like you don''t use contractions or slang in professional work, you don''t use text-speak either.

 

[MonkeyPie]

Date: 11/8/2008 6:30:16 PM
Author: katamari
Big ditto to Haven and Freke. I teach college students and it became so bad that I have to have a clause in my syllabus that I will return all papers or e-mails that use text-speak and will not react to it until it is returned with correct grammar.

I guess the good news is that it is less common in my upper level classes, but sheesh. My big problem is the unprofessionalism. I have no problem with text-speak, per se, but just like you don''t use contractions or slang in professional work, you don''t use text-speak either.

You are awesome

 

[decodelighted]

Date: 11/8/2008 6:30:16 PM
Author: katamari
just like you don''t use contractions or slang in professional work, you don''t use text-speak either.

Uh-oh. Twenty years in the entertainment industry & I''ve just learned its not "professional".

Seriously, *my* industry is obsessed with youth culture - including how to sell to our scarily jaded young folk. Remaining fluent in current slang & pop culture is the key to staying relevant in a biz (ha) where fogies are shunned as if aging is contagious.

There''s a great recent article about it in the NY Times ... about Bravo honcho Lauren Zalaznick, called The Affluencer.