Has the world gone MAD (Humanity Against Dysfunction) acronym?

Now LOL, we reply ASAP, BYOB to the holidays and we watch CSI on TV. My initial reaction (sorry for the pun) is that we are getting too lazy to say the whole words. I understand that text messaging is faster that way, but what about the rest of the people who speak or write? The use of initials has always been quite common. After all, who’s going to say that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Columbia Broadcasting System, or even the United States of America no longer? But the corporate or government world is one thing, the common language arena is another. I acknowledge that Webster has many abbreviations listed as acceptable substitutes. Some of the most obvious are television, reps, advertisements, executives, promotions, abs, fax, web, vet, and government. That’s right, these are the abbreviated words, for those who don’t realize that “fax” is actually a “facsimile”.

The problem with people who tend to write with acronyms is that they still have to communicate. Many young people believe that everyone knows what the initials mean. So when they post an ad on Craig’s List, they assume we would know what SWF4M, for LTR with DINK. This is a real listing. Depending on your age and situation, you may or may not know what this means. Try “I am a single white woman looking for a man for a long-term relationship that could lead to a double income with no children.” Wasn’t that EZ?

But it gets even better with texting. Try this: WRUD. PRW. LYLAS. OTTOMH, PMFJI, ROTFLUTS, GL / HF. You better know them because they will be the basic phrases of the next generation. You can check them out on the web, but I’ll translate one for you to get you started. ROTFLUTS is “rolling on the floor laughing and unable to speak.” Get it?

Saying goodbye instead of saying goodbye is a no-brainer. Using the $ sign for money, the same thing happens. Even throwing a smiley face can be cute. But TLK2UL8R is ridiculous. It is almost as long as the actual sentence, we will talk later. Where is the shortcut? Or THNX, THNQ, PLZ or CUL8R? Using YR for “you”, 4 for “for”, Y for “why” and 2 for “for” is pretty routine. But where does it end? Will the next generation forget the real words completely? Think of the new TV shows. NCIS, CSI-NY, 30 Rock. We see the NBA, the NFL. or MLB on FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS or ESPN. Of course there are QVC or HSN to buy things. We used to see the “UNCLE Man”, the “United Network Law Enforcement Command”. But that was a parody of James Bond and spy movies.

And when it comes to movies, well, keep going. The sequel to Men in Black was simply “MBII”. Now most of the sequels only use initials. “AI” stands for Artificial Intelligence. Maybe it’s cheaper to print on posters. Who knows? We also use acronyms for phone numbers, which drives most of us crazy. Just dial 800-Shopnow or 866-Sheraton. It is supposed to help us remember the number, but it is a headache to find out. Even domain name URLs are becoming a problem. In addition to using initials like USPS for the United States Postal Service on their site, there are dot com, gov, biz, org, net, edu, mil (military), int, info, and us. Add to that another group of countries, like uk, au, fr, ru, etc., and where does it end? Try coop, aero, pro, cat, jobs, mail, post, tel and xxx. Guess what that last one was for?

I know I am probably one of the only voices of reason, but I enjoy reading and researching the web. I am just afraid that one day I will wake up and think that I am in a foreign land because I will not be able to understand anything. I will need a translator to read my email, classifieds or read a text message. And as it spreads into my daily life, it could become very unnerving. But I will continue to do my part by writing articles without shortcuts or acronyms and I hope you will do the same. That’s it for now (TAFN) and good luck and good reading (GLGR).