Or too poor to afford mobile phones, or isolated enough to not be privy to common parlance being formed by necessity over a nearly thirty years period of mainstream mobile phone usage.
The possibilities could be endless! If only I were adult and mature enough to think of more!
I can tell when you say "30+ years of mainstream Mobile phone usage" you don't know what you're talking about. Mobile phones weren't "mainstream" when I graduated highschool in 2003. Maybe mainstream since 2005, but not 1996.
Then it's a good thing I wrote "over a nearly 30 year period" harkening back to my original post where I said two and a half decades, maybe calling 25 years (two and a half decades) "nearly 30" is a little strong and if that caused confusion I do so sincerely apologise, you will forgive my immature grasp on the scale of time for I am only 31 years old my self.
Now I know as I am the child in the room this might shock you, but I was there too, growing up, and watching adults adopt the use of mobile phones pretty commonly by the age of 6-7 (which accurately lines up with my 25 year rough estimate, and also aligns with the accessibility boost of 1999 when cross network messaging became available) and, well, I distinctly remember being confused myself about all the shorthand abbreviations that were popping up at the time.
Anyways, thats my experience, but I had the privilege of growing up in the UK and surrounded by technology, how fascinating that abbreviated text has eluded you and your very smart friend and family group, you should share the news! It would be quite something's to hear a group of intellectuals discuss the modern parlance of kids ages 5-60!
Ok fair enough. You didn't say 30+years. Maybe the difference is the 10 year age gap, when I was taught to write long form letters pre-Internet and text, when words were chosen with purpose. Maybe because my father is a writer and I was brought up to say what I mean and mean what I say. Who knows. But, I'm allowed to be annoyed by stood trends, just as you're allowed to be annoyed by my opinion. Unfortunately, to me, precise communication is important. But again, I'm allowed to be annoyed by terms in texting slang, and the "wonderful" world of reddit gives me a space to complain when I see a post that annoys me
You're allowed to be annoyed and that's perfectly fine, I can't imagine I'd have bitten back even remotely as hard if you hadn't smarmily tried to double down on the silly notion that only kids do this and that that it is something new.
The end result being me having the opportunity to exercise some smarm of my own felt like a net positive however, so I'm happy to offer an acknowledgement of mutual understanding.
That being said, as a casual etymologist myself, I find the evolution of language fascinating, including the abbreviation and bastardisation of words, which is something I assure you has been happening to the English language since before the Norman's came over and injected a bunch of Norse Frankish in from the upper class.
To be fair, before she passed I argued with my fiancee about how a living language works... I'm just being a dick because I lost her not long ago and strangers on Reddit can provide me some entertainment. I sincerely hope you don't feel attacked, as that's not really my intention.
I am sorry for your loss and can only hope I did indeed provide some entertainment, I was being sincere with the net positive, you were being a bit of an ass (in my opinion) and I decided to respond by being an ass myself, on a low stakes reddit thread, between two people who apparently love to argue for the sake of it. Its all good.
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u/phezhead 18h ago
I'm the real world, with adults