We’ve gone through the Greatest Generation (as defined by Tom Brokaw), the Boomer Generation, Generation X, Generation Y, Millennials, Generation We, and others.
At this point, I think we’re in the Now Generation. And a growing trend is to abbreviate everything. Well, almost. Happy Hour seems to be growing rather than shrinking, ranging from two hours to six hours. I’m not including the places that say Happy Hour is Every Hour. Probably no place has a happy hour that is only one hour.
I see LOL often and don’t know whether that means Lot of Luck, Lots of Love, Laughing Out Loud, or Leave out Louie. Of course, it can be clarified by adding to it, as in LOL-ROF, which I am told means Laughing Out Loud – Rolling on Floor.
A biffie in the abbreviated world is App, which I am going to guess is short for Application. And there is an App for everything. If you can’t find an App for what needs to be done, you just haven’t looked enough. BTW (by the way), a California woman is suing her former company claiming she was fired for deleting an app from her phone, one the company had told her must be there 24/7 (24 hours a day, seven days a week).
Abbreviating comes in handy if you are txtng or Tweeting. Tweets limit you to 140 characters total for a message. As a result, neither of my sisters Tweet. But people love tweets. They are so “now.” And they can be used to convey every little detail of your day. But only in 140 character bites.
We do need a new dictionary, though, that defines all the abbreviations. OMDB could mean “Old Money Does Buy.” Or maybe, “On My Dedicated Blog.” Or Over My 
Dead Body.” That’s the name of my book that released this week. It’s a contemporary mystery, or maybe a CM. Of course, CM could stand for Christian Mystery, and Over My Dead Body could be considered a Christian Mystery since the man who ultimately solves the crime is a minister.
I guess, in light of this trend to shorten things, I’ll just STI (stop this insanity).
(No need to type anything. Just click on “Like” and “Share” below. Or click on the cover to find out more about this new mystery.)
Not only do we need a dictionary to help us read all these abbreviations, an entire language class will soon be necessary. Bilingual will soon mean Eng. Span. and Text.
I like that. Bilingual now includes text language. Thanks.
Jim!
Your post is #clever..I thought I was listening to Andy Rooney!! Love the way you segued into your book title. In my latest book, main character, Quinn, has a blind date with a guy who speaks in IM lingo..Instant messaging and it drives her nuts!
~Ann
It would drive me nuts also. I have enough trouble with plain English. Thanks for stopping by, Ann. BUT, you didn’t give us the name of that book. How can I find it?
LMAO.
Well, I don’t know whether to be offended or over joyed. LMAO? Laughing My Ass Off – correct? See, you are way ahead of me. Must be because you are closer to the texting generation than I am. Thanks for visiting.