×

FYI, Kimerer is HTH with chatspeak — YW

My Sentiments Exactly

It’s been four years since Geoffrey the Giraffe beckoned us all to be “Toys R Us” kids.

Sorry, folks, I don’t have a backwards “R” on my keypad. Truth be told, the reversed letter always truly bugged me. Why? Oh, I dunno. Call me kooky but I’m sort of not a fan of teaching children how to spell things incorrectly.

OK, fine. Sometimes I make up my own words (see “I dunno” in previous paragraph).

Hmpf. Guilty, I suppose. But generally speaking, I am a huge syntax, spelling, grammar, etc. monger.

You know, IRL.

That’s “in real life” for you dinosaurs such as myself — who don’t necessarily speak initializations and acronyms like the young’ns of today do.

I’m sorry but — just why?

I mean, I guess if you’re texting, less is more, but I had no idea how vast the electronic alphabet had morphed until I visited a website titled Target Market at https://targetmarket.com/ Apparently, condensed speak is all the rage these days.

Target Market taught me the following short-cut phrases and their respective meaning(s). Did you know:

DM — Direct message. A private message sent between two users. Even I could’ve figured this one out!

Fleet — Temporary Twitter posts that disappear after 24 hours. And here I thought this was a naval reference?

MT — Modified tweet. A tweet that has been altered before resharing. Um, IRL is this equivalent to a lie? Hmm.

PM — Private message. Another term used for a one-on-one message.

RT — Retweet. When you share someone’s tweet to your own feed. That one really WAS self-explanatory.

Tweet — Twitter post

#XYZBCA — The #xyzbca hashtag is simply a popular hashtag that people use in the hopes of getting more views on their TikTok videos. OK, whatever?

2mr — Tomorrow

BTW — By the Way (BT dubs, this one, I knew!)

DYK — Did you know?

F2F — Face to face

FF — Follow Friday (I am clueless here. What’s it mean?)

FOMO — Fear of missing out (Heck, everyone knows this one, no?)

FYI — For your information (Again, an oldie but goodie.)

HBD — Happy birthday

HTH — Here to help

ICYMI — In case you missed it

IDC — I don’t care

IDK — I don’t know

IKR — I know, right?

ILY — I love you

LMS — Like my status

LOL — Laugh out loud

MCM — Man-crush Monday. Huh?

MIA — Missing in action. Well, shoot, this one’s been around forever!

NM — Not much

NSFW — Not safe for work. OK, what now?

NVM — Never mind

OBV — Obviously

OOTD — Outfit of the day. Again, what?

PP — Profile picture. Um, just no to this.

TIL — Today I learned. As in, a LOT about these weird contractions!

TL; DR — Too long; didn’t read. OK, this one actually cracks me up.

TMI — Too much information. I actually do say this, on the reg.

WBW — Way back Wednesday. Never heard of it.

YOLO — You only live once. Well, duh.

YW — You’re welcome. Um, thanks?

Well, I guess that’s it, TTFN.

That’s “ta ta for now,” as they say in the Motherland; hee!

— Kimerer is a columnist who is trying to learn hip lingo. HHU, er, hit her up at www.patriciakimerer.com.

Starting at $2.99/week.

Subscribe Today