I remember back when cell phones first came out. They were these things that looked like a shoe box with a small antenna and I took one look and said this will never catch on. They seemed like an answer to a question no one had really asked. The one place I really enjoyed being was someplace where no one could find me if they had something they needed me to do. Because of that I was very slow to come around and probably one of the last to get hooked up. Now keep in mind I still don’t have a Facebook page and to this day I can’t even get on Facebook without someone showing me how so I wouldn’t consider me a media queen. I do love technology but I like to go to it more than I like for it to come to me. Well now I have a cell phone that I feel naked without (not a vision I am necessarily trying to sublimittedly put in your mind). I went for quite a while without texting mainly because I type with my fingers like most people would do with their toes. After a while I have again come around to this and I’m getting more into it but there is a language here I just can’t seem to grasp. Letters, spaces and whole words just seem to disappear and people make sense of all this. I mean AAR is supposed to mean At Any Rate? AAR is something the more respectable pirates use in place or UH to let their mind catch up with their mouth. Knowing that I had 4 years of French in high school and I still know less about the language than most pieces of french toast, I guess this shouldn’t surprise anyone, but still.
Looking into this slightly I believe this whole abbreviated text thing originated back years before the cell phone were even thought about. I’m not sure if you remember but there was once a classic of a short story that took only 33 letters to tell. It is called M R Ducks. It goes like this:
M R Ducks, M R not, R2 – CM wings?, LIB M R Ducks
As Told SouthenTranslation English Translation
M R Ducks Them are ducks I believe those are ducks.
M R not Them are not I disagree. I don’t believe they are.
R 2 Are too Pardon me but yes they are.
C M Wangs? See Them wings Do you notice the wings?
L I B M R Ducks Well I’ll be. Them are ducks. Well. They just might just be ducks.
Think this sounds a little stupid? Here are a few examples of today’s official versions :
AFAHMASP – A fool and his money are soon parted
ANFAWFOS – And now for a word from our sponsor
AWGTHTGTWTA? – Are we going to have to go through with this again?
DWWWI – Surfing the world wide web while intoxicated
FMTEYEWTK – Far more than everything you’ve ever wanted to know
FYSBIGTBABN – Fasten your seatbelts it’s going to be a bumpy night
GNSTDLTBBB – Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite
HLOLARAWCHAWP – Hysterically laughing out loud & rolling around while clapping hands & wetting pants
ICHWYSIHABIME – I can’t hear you since I have a banana in my ear
There are hundreds more. This noncence seems to make that whole M R Ducks thing seem more logical all the time.
If you want to see how to decipher all of this (like the high tech version of the “Little Orphan Annie Decoder Ring”) go to
www.just-quotes.com/acronyms_abbreviations_c.html
TT4N – B careful EMRTW
