I'm part of generation X - I think. I have what I consider to be reasonable doubt as to the place I hold among my fellow twenty-somethings. For example, I am more likely to be found reading a book than watching reality TV; heading to the 6am spin class than crawling home in the wee small hours and I'm to be found frequenting the Bingo hall way more than I care to admit (mostly because I still haven't actually won anything).
(My collection of Vges, which could also stand for 'vague' which is really quite apt in the scheme of this post ey?)
None of this particularly bothered me, that is until recently, when I realised that I no longer speak the same language as my compadres. I am foreign to their colloquialisms, overuse of acronyms and incessant, and often non-sensical, addition of 'ies' (e.g. walkies, drinkies). I only recently un-shrouded the mysticism that surrounded 'OOTD' - for the uninitiated it means 'outfit of the day' and is usually prefixed with a hashtag. I felt smugly accomplished, that is until 'LOTD' laughed at me from my computer screen. Was I to remain forever ostracised from this seemingly illusive vernacular? (I later discovered it to mean 'look of the day' but the stress resulted in a week of bed rest nonetheless).
There are some shortenings that go way back, like all the way to the days of MSN. You remember BRB (be right back) right? It was usually used when a parent was fast approaching and you needed to make a swift exit. Or how about BTW (by the way)? Or what about the contentious LOL (has a decree been made yet upon whether it's 'laugh out loud' or 'lots of love'?) And now theres's TBT (throwback Thursday), which looks set to join these mainstays of the modern, and lets be honest, lazy lexicon of now.
(The retro emoji)
Magazines now read like a Scrabble board that has been angrily kicked over, letters strewn arbitrarily around the page. Fashion month can be boiled down to a string of seemingly unrelated letters. The culmination of a designer's hard work, minimised into a mere three or four letters. It would seem that the lexicon of fashion is as mutable as the very trends themselves. Which is fine - if everyone is in on the ever changing glossary of fashion and its abbreviated terms. Perhaps it is just a symptom of fashion's notoriously exclusory nature? You can't afford it and now you can't talk about it either. Then again maybe not.
Whilst reading Miss Vogue, I was informed that 'wavey' now means 'cool'. After a very thorough survey of, well all of my family (including the dog), the consensus was that this definitely was not a widely known 'thing' and thus was likely clique language, like when Gretchen of 'Mean Girls' tried to make 'fetch' work. People of a certain and informed circle may embrace said chosen word but the masses remain ignorant to its new elevation. And what's more, life keeps on going. Knowing exactly what 'IDK' (I don't know) means may enrich the story further; heck yes you might be missing the crux of the piece, but more than likely it will just warrant a minor pause, that shouldn't affect you reaching the end of the piece because like always, the end is nigh.
(Can you imagine Homer's reaction if the Odyssey were to be transcribed into text speak?)
For a society obsessed with social media we aren't particularly sociable, a fact represented in our estrangement with the very symbols and characters that enable communication. Which is demonstrated more pointedly again with our infatuation with emojis. What does the alien emoticon even mean? I doubt it was intended to mean a feeling of alienation though for the sake of this piece, it is quite apt. Perhaps it was just a cultural reference to E.T? Maybe I should just move with the times, in whatever guise the language takes and embrace the IDGAF attitude that would make scholars loose their mortarboards over? *Insert dancing girls emoji*
(Images via: OJ Creative & booksitting.wordpress.com)
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