"lol"- Laugh out loud. "Lmao!"- Laugh my ass off. "Wtf?!"- What the fuck?! "ttyl"- Talk to you later. "ttyt"-Talk to you tomorrow. "Bbl"- Be back later. "Gtg"- Got to go. "Omg"- Oh my god. "Tmrw"- Tomorrow
Actually George is right, context is important and, like it or not, people can and do judge you on your manner of expressing yourself. Perhaps it ought not to matter but ought is not the same as is.
And also, yes, you'll come across as a chav.
Personally I find the only context appropriate for these kind of acronyms to be informal internet-based communication with my friends who are also in on a kind of shared meta-humourous 'ironic' appreciation for them. Basically, the usage of the acronyms becomes funny due to their incongruity and/or deliberate misapplication in what is an otherwise serious intellectual/technical discussion.
Yes, context in terms of who you're talking to . Talking among friends, I'm sure most people resort to causal conversations, I don't see why people would go to such lengths in using the up most formal language around friends, Unless you're some old mature person ( No offense ) But age does play a role in this as well.
THANK YOU!!! Goodness....I'm glad you all see the point. Lama i agree with you on that one. He must be talking about formal English.
If someone types formal all the time does that suppose to make them smarter? I think not. There are plenty of idiots on the internet that can fool you into thinking they are smart, when they are actually not.
Anyways im not trying to bash George or anything, but next time he needs to think before he types. Especially, if it can offend people. Not saying it did to me, but your statement is very controversial.
Txt msgs cn smtms b hrd 2 rd cs vowels rnt rly usd so mch. bt evn so, its psbl 2 rd wt iv riten.
its bcoz:
1. these is lmtd space in a txt msg. sndin lng msgs is xpnsiv
2. its fstr.
3. ppl r lzy.
*******
Using abbreviations such as lol, ttyl etc. might be annoying if overused but its pretty common. To write in the style used above is common among young teens. I absoloutely hate it! If a friend wrote in such a way I would honestly tell them to write the message again or not expect a reply!
CAPS FROM USING MY CELL PHONE.携帯で入力していますので、文字は自動的に大文字になっています。
EBONY, I AGREE WITH GEORGE. I DON'T THINK HE WAS RUDE. NOR DO I THINK THAT YOU ARE WRONG.
I THINK IT'S A GENERATION THING. THOUGH WE'RE ONLY TEN YEARS APART, WE GREW UP IN DIFFERENT WORLDS. YOU GREW UP WITH TEXT ABBREVIATED ENGLISH.
FOR ME, SEEING TEXT MEANS THAT THE OTHER PERSON IS YOUNG OR CHILD-LIKE. I CRINGE WHEN I SEE THESE ABBREVIATIONS IN EMAILS. ON MY FIRST COMMENT,I TYPED IN JAPANESETHAT I STRESS NOT USING THESE.
IN JAPANESE, EVERYTHING GETS ABBREVIATED. IT'S THE NORM.
BUT IN THE ADULT WORLD OF ENGLISH, WE SHOULD NOT USE ABBREVIATIONS BECAUSE THEY MAKE US LOOK UNPROFESSIONAL (AND I JUST REALIZED THAT I AM IN THE ENGLISH SLANG SECTION‥SO I'M PROBABLY BEING A JERK, SORRY).
SO IT'S GREAT THAT YOU EXPLAINED THESE TO ENGLISH LEARNERS. I JUST WANT TO STRESS PEOPLE NOT TO USE THEM.
>> the only one i ever use is lol, because there is no
>> actually other way of letting someone know that
>> you are amused at something.
I guess you could type "laughing out loud"...or "laughing"
if you want to make it shorter.
I don't really understand the problem you have with them.
We've been doing it ever since we could speak. It's in the
very nature of language to adapt to new situations...in this
case short messages which are limited to 50 characters
and typed on a numeric keypad.
We use OK and Hi in daily speech. It's totally OK to put
NB or P.S. at the end of letters. Nobody buys a compact
disc, they buy a CD. I'm sure I could think of more but
those are the ones that immediately spring to mind.
I don't use internet shorthand because I personally think I look foolish when I type it. I'm not saying I think that my friends are foolish that use "cul8r" or stuff like that, but it's not exactly too much trouble to write the whole thing out, in my opinion.
>>22
My meaning was that George was formulating his messages with intent to provoke. This is known as 'trolling'. There's even an acronym about it:
yhbt == you have been trolled.
for example, くり・きんとん has clearly been trolled quite badly.
well it sucks for you because i get 1500 free text's a month and 1000 free minutes a month to any network....oh and unlimited free internet all for £40, i can't complain
ダレン
hahaha, i've never heard of the term ''trolled'' but yeah i guess i just get bored sometimes and enjoy to provoke people and get a reaction.
エボニー
couldn't care less.....i don't know you and i'll never meet you. I have my 'real' friends and i'm happy with them. I'm not here to make friends mate sorry
LOL wow George i never said i wanted to be your friend. When did i say that exactly huh? You just another person from the internet to me. Well DUH, everyone here has rl friends. What a crummy comeback. You failed. :D
George (London), I know many older people who use shorthand for the comedic effect. So it's definitely not a generational thing.
Actually, I'd agree that using it unironically is pretty stupid unless you're texting on a phone. I'd say most of its use is done with ironic intent (i hope).
Neither I care if George (London)-san has got class, nor if エボニーsan's response has any merits.
As a native speaker of Japanese though, I am curious about Michael-san's earlier comment:
IN JAPANESE, EVERYTHING GETS ABBREVIATED. IT'S THE NORM.
(28 Michael: 2009年02月18日 11:33)
Michael-san, I am wondering what specific examples you had in your mind when you wrote the above. Suppose that abbreviating everything is certainly the norm in Japanese, I am wondering if this tendency or phenomenon is uniquely Japanese or fairly common in certain languages in the world.
Please don't misunderstand me; as a former graduate student in linguistics I'm purely curious and have no other motives.
I would expect that most languages are capable of various forms of abbreviation. The use of the grammatical parts of language are often the most easily shortened, or completely unused when not necessary to basic understanding. Furthermore, for the purposes of shorthand, the majority of today's active languages recognise certain universal symbols, 1 2 3 & % $ \, etc, all of which actually equate to a spoken form, varying with regards to a language.
An interesting thing to me, is that though English is not generally considered a context driven language, the use of shorthand forms causes an otherwise quite explicit language to become implicit.
Here's a good example of English slang. I said, "everything" but it doesn't really mean everything, in means "things all over the place" or to put it simply, "a lot."
So of course, not everything in Japanese gets abbreviated, but there are a lot of words that do get abbreviated in Japanese such as 就職生活→就活、 外国人→外人、 難しい→むずい. Many katakana words go through the abbreviation process as well such as パインアップル→パイン.
In spoken English, very few words get abbreviated. One that comes to my mind which I often use is ASAP. NGO, GOP, USA are also commonly used.
Thanks for your response. I think I more or less understand what you say. As for an example such as the $ symbol, it is pronounced "dollar(s)" by English speakers, "doru" by Japanese speakers, "yuan" by Chinese speakers, etc., which to me is interesting.
As for "the use of shorthand forms causing an otherwise quite explicit language to become implicit," I am not so sure what examples exist to illustrate this. The term "politically correct," for instance, was quite popular in 1990s and is still used to some extent in English-speaking world. Am I right if I say that the use of "PC," the shortened form of the term, makes a statement more implicit?
Thanks for your response as well. I understand the rhetorical or somewhat dramatic use of the word "everything" in your earlier comment, which is fair enough. All the examples in Japanese you gave are convincing.
As for examples of abbreviation in spoken English, how about the following?
situation comedy >> sitcom
intercommunication system >> intercom
condominium >> condo
Liberal Democrat >> Lib Dem (UK)
discotheque >> disco
university >> uni (mainly Australia, NZ)
atomic bomb >> A-bomb
hydrogen bomb >> H-bomb
nuclear >> nuke
rock'n'roll >> rock
fabulous >> fab
Internet >> Net
Sorry I couldn't come up with more commonly used examples, but I didn't try to give just familiar vocabulary items. Rather, my intention was more to do with an attempt to illustrate a certain mode of contraction in English words that is in parallel with the Japanese examples given above by Michael. I was wondering if the phenomena described by Michael are not so uniquely or peculiarly Japanese as he imagines.
In Japanese, shortening of words occurs not as often by simple acronym or abbreviation as in the following manner:
paasonaru kompyuutaa >> pasokon (personal computer)
dejitaru kamera >> dejikame (digital camera)
konbiniensu sutoa >> konbini (convenience store)
Kimura Takuya >> Kimutaku (a popular male Japanese singer-actor)
Sangen-Chaya >> Sancha (a placename in Tokyo)
Nihon Keizai Shimbun >> Nikkei (a Japanese equivalent of the Wall Street Journal)
As you can see, this method of shortening is a little different from the kind of abbreviation most commonly found in English, such as:
personal computer >> PC
London School of Economics >> LSE
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees >> UNHCR
as soon as possible >> a.s.a.p.
The most common mode of contraction in Japanese is multiple syllable-based, as opposed to the single letter-based abbreviation found in English. Michael or other people might think the syllable-based contraction is uniquely Japanese, but I wanted to show that there are some examples of syllable-based contraction in English as well (e.g. sitcom, intercom).
Perhaps my point was off the topic. Sorry for the deviation.
I said that it's not as common in English as it is in Japanese. I said, "BUT IN THE ADULT WORLD OF ENGLISH, WE SHOULD NOT USE ABBREVIATIONS BECAUSE THEY MAKE US LOOK UNPROFESSIONAL."
To be clear, and I'm sorry that this sounds confusing, I was not referring to accepted words like "sitcom" and "PC," but to the slang abbreviations that people use in emails, which are overflowing into other walks of the language.
Many thanks for the response. Yes, I *do* know you never said that it was uniquely Japanese. I just *wondered* if you or other people *might*--by any chance--think that it was or not.
This thread started with the examples of text message slang presented by エボニーsan. And then you mentioned the norm in the adult world of English (perhaps unlike Japanese?) that disapproves the use of such abbreviations exemplified by エボニーsan.
Perhaps not only English but also Japanese may have similar dislikes toward the use of text message slang in somewhat adult, formal settings. But whether the answer is yes or no, that has little to do with this thread or community; after all this is a community about slang, colloquialism, or vernacular in English, not Japanese.
It was my careless mixing up of slang abbreviations with other, more accepted contractions that caused the confusion. I hope I now explained myself reasonably well.