Let Me Spell It Out for You By: Aspen Grams
I don’t know what it is about this year, but something in the air has been making people do crazy things. A man in Egypt named his son Facebook, Charlie Sheen suddenly started “winning,” and girls on campus started abbreviating words like there’s no tomorrow.
Words such as presh, totes and perf -and I’m using the term “words” very loosely- are being thrown around in everyday conversation. If something is really cute, girls say, “That is totes presh.” If a meeting time is agreed upon, the response is “Okay, perf.”
What is going on here? It was bad enough when kids started using acronyms such as LOL and OMG. Now they’re moving past that and working towards sounding legit crazy- I mean, legitimately crazy. See? It’s even seeping into my brain, and I’m the one against it!
Abbreviating words simply for the sake of abbreviating is a concept I can’t quite understand. Are people that lazy that they have to shorten precious to presh and totally to totes? Do they have so little time that they must shorten all words for efficiency’s sake? Or, is it a sad attempt at being creative?
I am sick of hearing “totes presh.” I find it to be childish, and I also think it makes girls look less intelligent. In a world where women are still fighting to break stereotypes- where blondes are trying to prove they aren’t all dumb and where wives are trying to get their men to make their own “sammich”- this type of language is not helping their cause.
We as a society need to get away from the world of shorthand. It’s fine for journalists who have to write fast during an interview or for a student who is taking notes, but incorporating it into our everyday conversations is too much. We are cheapening the English language and cheapening ourselves because people don’t take us seriously. To my knowledge, there is no employer out there who would find it acceptable for their employees to talk with clients in that way. If there is, please point them out to me so I can steer these abbreviating girls their way.
I for one am going to refrain from all this foolishness. I will continue to say whatever instead of whatevs and ridiculous instead of ridic. I will do this because I take pride in my education and want everyone to know I have my head on tight.
I think everyone else should follow my example, but then again, who am I to mandate how people should speak? There is, after all, an amendment protecting freedom of speech. Until that is changed, I guess I’ll just have to accept the fact that people will continue to annoy me with all of their abbrevs.
H8trs gon H8! By: Heather Francis
All my bff’s on the fb and my flwrs o’ my tweets hve been askng me, wats on my mind? Like, serius? Is that evn a Ques? I’ll def tell wats on my mind. Wats w/ all the h8trs?! Jus bc we R totes frat and all intel and whatev doesn’t mean we cn’t keep ^ w/ the evo of lang. Fo real, convos Rn’t in old skool lets no-mo! To have legit covos, u gotta hve fast thmbs and fast lingo. So txt speak is just evo of comm, srviv -o- fits! All those h8trs jus gotta keep ^, adap all rdy! I totes knw info, jus bc I say “My BFF jill is totes presh<3 :),” dosn’t mean I’m like totes stup! I def passd the SAT, and the ACT! Those are nymes, but no h8trs say jak bout them! So wats on my mind? H8ters and how totes ridic they R gainst our presh text lang! Keep it frsh, it’s totes whatev, stay relev! Txt it 😉
