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Patty Kimerer

FYI, Kimerer is HTH with chatspeak — YW

My Sentiments Exactly

By Patty Kimerer 3 min read

It's been four years since Geoffrey the Giraffe beckoned us all to be "Toys R Us" kids.

Sorry, folks, I don't have a backwards "R" on my keypad. Truth be told, the reversed letter always truly bugged me. Why? Oh, I dunno. Call me kooky but I'm sort of not a fan of teaching children how to spell things incorrectly.

OK, fine. Sometimes I make up my own words (see "I dunno" in previous paragraph).

Hmpf. Guilty, I suppose. But generally speaking, I am a huge syntax, spelling, grammar, etc. monger.

You know, IRL.

That's "in real life" for you dinosaurs such as myself -- who don't necessarily speak initializations and acronyms like the young'ns of today do.

I'm sorry but -- just why?

I mean, I guess if you're texting, less is more, but I had no idea how vast the electronic alphabet had morphed until I visited a website titled Target Market at https://targetmarket.com/ Apparently, condensed speak is all the rage these days.

Target Market taught me the following short-cut phrases and their respective meaning(s). Did you know:

DM -- Direct message. A private message sent between two users. Even I could've figured this one out!

Fleet -- Temporary Twitter posts that disappear after 24 hours. And here I thought this was a naval reference?

MT -- Modified tweet. A tweet that has been altered before resharing. Um, IRL is this equivalent to a lie? Hmm.

PM -- Private message. Another term used for a one-on-one message.

RT -- Retweet. When you share someone's tweet to your own feed. That one really WAS self-explanatory.

Tweet -- Twitter post

#XYZBCA -- The #xyzbca hashtag is simply a popular hashtag that people use in the hopes of getting more views on their TikTok videos. OK, whatever?

2mr -- Tomorrow

BTW -- By the Way (BT dubs, this one, I knew!)

DYK -- Did you know?

F2F -- Face to face

FF -- Follow Friday (I am clueless here. What's it mean?)

FOMO -- Fear of missing out (Heck, everyone knows this one, no?)

FYI -- For your information (Again, an oldie but goodie.)

HBD -- Happy birthday

HTH -- Here to help

ICYMI -- In case you missed it

IDC -- I don't care

IDK -- I don't know

IKR -- I know, right?

ILY -- I love you

LMS -- Like my status

LOL -- Laugh out loud

MCM -- Man-crush Monday. Huh?

MIA -- Missing in action. Well, shoot, this one's been around forever!

NM -- Not much

NSFW -- Not safe for work. OK, what now?

NVM -- Never mind

OBV -- Obviously

OOTD -- Outfit of the day. Again, what?

PP -- Profile picture. Um, just no to this.

TIL -- Today I learned. As in, a LOT about these weird contractions!

TL; DR -- Too long; didn't read. OK, this one actually cracks me up.

TMI -- Too much information. I actually do say this, on the reg.

WBW -- Way back Wednesday. Never heard of it.

YOLO -- You only live once. Well, duh.

YW -- You're welcome. Um, thanks?

Well, I guess that's it, TTFN.

That's "ta ta for now," as they say in the Motherland; hee!

-- Kimerer is a columnist who is trying to learn hip lingo. HHU, er, hit her up at www.patriciakimerer.com.

Starting at /week.