Evan Davis, one of the presenters on Radio 4's Today programme, was pulled up for saying that the text abbreviation LOL meant 'lots of laughs', when it actually stands for 'laughing out loud'. LOL is an abbreviation used in several different ways, according to Fiona Macpherson of the OED, who was interviewed by Evan this morning (available for another week here); some people mean 'lots of love' when they write LOL in a text.
The most common texting abbreviation, according to Fiona Macpherson, is probably OMG, or 'Oh, my God!' (not as new as you might think -- it was first used in a letter in 1917). She also went on to say that these days expressions that were coined to save time and characters when tweeting (such as the ruder WTF) are now being used - in their abbreviated form - in speech. Certainly these coined abbreviated terms seem to take on a life of their own. Evan Davis felt quite uncomfortable saying some of the common abbreviated expletives (such as FFS, for f....'s sake) on the radio, even though he was only saying three letters, and probably many listeners would not have understood him anyway.
Listen to the short interview here; it will be available for another week.
It appears from this that text abbreviations are fairly universal, most likely due to the global nature of communications technology and usage these days.
We've even woven some of the more colourful ones into verbal slang at work using the phoenetic alphabet as in "whiskey tango foxtrot, over".
I do suspect though, that usage of text abbreviations may actually decrease in the future as a function of increased availability of mobiles/cells with full keypads. Just an opinion.
Posted by: John | October 29, 2011 at 01:34 AM
Even more so under the influence of Siri, perhaps.
Posted by: Picky | October 29, 2011 at 07:29 PM
Thanks for your comments. Picky - I had to look up Siri, so thanks for the new word. I agree about the decline of text abbreviations, John. My children already laugh at me for using abbreviations as they indicate that I do not use predictive texting.
Posted by: Virtual Linguist | October 31, 2011 at 09:41 AM
Tell them not to laugh; predictive texting has a long way to go. I turn it off, given that it is easier to key correctly than fix poor predictions. I'm with Picky - voice will prevail, although there are quirks there also.
Posted by: John | October 31, 2011 at 11:41 AM
There is nothing more annoying than having predictive text on your phone, it always get the text wrong. I have to say though some text abbreviations leave me bewildered.
Posted by: Mia | October 31, 2011 at 12:01 PM
Thanks for all your comments.
Posted by: Virtual Linguist | October 31, 2011 at 12:03 PM
Text abbreviations are confusing, I sometimes get them through and have to sit and think about what they could mean lol.
Posted by: sophie | November 21, 2011 at 09:47 AM
I love text abbreviations, although some of the ones my daughter sends through I find hard to even understand.
Posted by: ava | November 22, 2011 at 02:40 PM
I find the most annoying text is that which is all abbreviated.
Posted by: amelia | November 22, 2011 at 03:02 PM
I still spell everything out in full when I text. And inlcude punctuation. Old habits are hard to break. Must be getting OLD. Very slow but I don't send out an inordinate almount of texts. LOL
Posted by: Arthur Samuels | January 06, 2012 at 11:10 AM
Thanks, Arthur. I'm the same.
Posted by: Virtual Linguist | January 08, 2012 at 10:11 PM
It's safer to spell everything out. Misunderstandings can spring from heavily abbreviated text.
Posted by: Cheryl | February 01, 2012 at 05:49 PM