Pet Peev #101

[zencadet]

Don't ask me what prompted this particular post. I don't know for sure - I think it's just something that's been bubbling inside me and the fuse has run out.

I cannot stand it when people speak in real life in text/IM speak. For anyone living under a rock who doesn't know, this is things like "omg", "lol", "wtf", etc. Now, this is not an

Comments

[merseine]

Actually... "wtf" is 5 syllables (double-u being 3 of the 5)... even worse when compared to the 3 syllables that they stand for.

[zencadet]

Gah! See, I was getting so caught up in the rant I made such an elementary mistake. Damn it! See what this is doing to my brain!?

(It's okay... it doesn't actually eat up all that much time of my daily existence. It only makes minor parts of my brain implode when I hear someone say these things in conversation and are not being sarcastic (or start out doing it sarcastically and then get into such a habit of doing it that it stops being sarcastic and just becomes them saying it (which is just as bad as them saying it seriously, IMHO (and, yes, I am aware of all the massive nesting of parenthesis I'm doing - it's actually becoming a bit a game to see how many I can reasonably do (without it being silly (like that one (see if you can spot if I've missed one...))))))).

[obsidian_wraith]

Just point for you:- I've also seen WTF "translated" as 'why the face' as well before now.

[zencadet]

Now, I saw that recently on the comedy Modern Family and just assumed it was a joke to show how out of touch the guy talking about it was. I've not actually seen it as "why the face" though it doesn't surprise me that there are dual meanings to abbreviations.

[killfalcon]

I'm always fascinated at how people's written and spoken language interact.

I honestly think people say Oh Em Gee because that's what they said in their head when typing it to someone else. They use text abbreviations in speech because they don't separate the two 'media' in their head, it's all speech, just sometimes there's a keyboard.

Just one more 'some people don't think about their own fucking language' thing.

[zencadet]

I think your last statement hits the nail on the head with respect to what's been bugging me most about it.

I love the English language (not to say that other languages do not have their merits - if I were born to a different native tongue, I'm sure I would feel the same about whatever language it is that I spoke) - more to the point, I love language, so it bugs me when I see it bastardised in certain ways. Yes, English is a living language and there is a lot of evolution within it, I accept that. But there are certain "evolutions" that I would prefer not to survive natural selection and remain in the linguistic gene pool. This being one of them.