Lingo: can’t decipher texting (updated)

I apologize folks, for reposting two days in a row (I’m doing my taxes, on top of everything else). This article discusses the Internet shorthand known as “lingo”. It appeared 6/15/07–

I have an embarrassing confession to make–I don’t always know how to translate what someone has text-ed into English. I need a Text-to-English dictionary. This is just one more fact, added to an already long list of facts, that tells me I’ve gotten ‘old’. We didn’t have texting when I was a teenager.

I think part of my problem stems from the fact that we have had an explosion of an “extreme” (or maybe I should say “X-treme”) phenomenon in this country. Everything has become X-treme this, and X-treme that. There are the X-Games featuring X-treme Sports, X-treme Motorcross, X-treme Snowboarding…we even had X-treme Football for a while. Guys are no longer content jumping their motorcycles across small creeks, they want to fly, and they do loop-the-loop’s now.

At first I thought texting was simply X-treme Abbreviation. And then I thought it might be a combination of Vanity License plate Language and X-Abbreviation. This thinking allowed me to read some of what I saw, but not all. I could decipher “gr8” and “l8r”, but not “b4n”. It didn’t help that I wasn’t a “texter” myself (Use a cellphone and give myself ear cancer? Not this fella!).

And then it dawned on me: these kids are using an Adult-proof secret code. They don’t want me to decipher it. The world suddenly made a lot more sense. My friends and I had used code too. This code is known as “lingo”.

Fotunately, there are resources available online for those of us who are “lingo”-handicapped. If you see “A/S/L”, but don’t understand what it means, you can find out (age/sex/location?) — and if you are a parent concerned about your kid and what they’re doing and saying on the Internet and in chatrooms — I suggest you do. If you’re like me, and just want to try to increase your “hipness” quotient (or just avoid some terrible faux pas), you will also find these translation resources useful and interesting.
Use your favorite search engine with this search string: translate lingo
My favorite is below:

Free link of the day: Lingo2Word. “Lingo2word is devoted to demistifying the new Internet shorthand language of Text messages, Chat rooms and Emails. We are devoted to the fun of text messaging in all forms, there is a whole new fun language out there just waiting for you!”

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved.

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