Texting is part and parcel of communication today. It can be between colleagues, acquaintances, family or even mates. With phone calls becoming a less popular choice for passage of messages of late due to the availability of more affordable internet bundles enabling and facilitating the texting exercise much easier and more convenient since they are less influenced by environmental noise and one can reply at a time of their own time of convenience minus having to interrupt whatever they are doing at the time of the call. With the changing times, ages and trends has come an innovation; a new spice in how people package their messages as they send them to the desired recipient(s); and that is the use of acronyms (short hand) or what some other group of people refer to as SLANG (short language) in texts/ conversations.
Slang on the other hand helps express emotion since written communication can be quite difficult to fulfill this purpose. However quick, more direct and straight to the point these are when putting information across, it is not advisable to use it as in some scenarios for example when communicating to a much larger and speech sensitive group since some might find it irritating to have to interpret whichever statement you tried to mean when you wrote what you wrote them or said what you said. Also, when communicating in formal setups say while sending a message to your superior, lecturer or those people you know do not like it when someone texts them using these; worse for a case where they may even not understand what a certain slang means or what it stands for in full; AVOID using short hand at all costs. The main purpose of this article is to share the commonly used internet slangs and maybe introduce you to the new ones you may not have known. Got it? So, Ladies and gentlemen welcome to my TED talk.
If you’re keen on observing social media conversations, you might have come across a ton of lingo or acronyms that take you a while to figure out. Social media acronyms like “TBH, SMH, LMAO”, and the likes. These get usually thrown about in comments, captions, and conversations between people. The thing about slang, is that its majorly used by a certain age group of people; (millennials; a general term to describe people born between the years 1980 to early 2000’s) to be specific. Any organization/ company that aims at or targets young people between the ages 13 to 30 should armor themselves with these if they are to communicate with them better else their message is like to fail to get that much attention incase they choose to stick to the traditional normal style of packaging messages in the normal old-style way of writing English. A small “OMG !!” expression at the introduction of an Advertisement for an AD targeted at capturing the attention of the listener would be more appealing than a normal “you won’t believe what we have in stock for you!”. See, the impression is different. Was able to compile a few, at least the commonly used ones and they include;
FYI – for your Information
HMU – hit me up
ICYMI – incase you missed it
IDC – I don’t care
IDK – I don’t know
IKR – I know, right?
LMK – let me know
JK – just kidding
MCM – man crush Monday
NVM – never mind
OTW – on the way
TBH – to be honest
TBT – throwback Thursday
TGIF – thank God its Friday
WBU – what about you
YOLO – you only live once
WTH – what the heck
SMH – shaking my head
LOL – laughing out loud
Ly – love you
NM – nothing much
WYD – what you doing
Cya – see ya
ASAP – as soon as possible
WDYM – what do you mean
BFF – best friend forever
BRB- be right back
G2G – got to go
RN – right now
W/o – without
S/o – shout out
Gr8 – great
BTW – by the way
TIA – thanks in advance
WDR- with due respect
SLAP – sounds like a plan
BTD – bored to death
WCW – woman crush Wednesday
BW – best wishes
XOXO – kisses and hugs
WYWH- wish you were here
DWBH – don’t worry be happy
Ama – ask me anything
ily – I love you
WWW- what went wrong
Would like to take this opportunity to say “Thank you” to all my friends and online fam for your suggestions you shared when I reached out to you as I was compiling a list of these slangs, can’t mention you all but I just wish to tell you all how grateful I am. Dear reader, in case you do any have other that I might have left out, please feel free to share in the comments sections, or better hit me up on social and say a “Hi”. Cheers. See you in the next one. Till then I remain,
Yours truly,
Mugibson
