‘w-t-f’ 2 ‘omg’: Chat and text messages demystified

 

RockeTalk is voice chat application, right? People use their voices so why the chat lingo? Hey- voice rules. With voice there come emotions, the nuances and more. And there are no language barriers- people don’t need to learn to text using English characters while the text reads in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Tamil or or.. Swahili. And voice is so much more fun. 

So… why am I doing this? Coz (because) I realize that there is a time and place for text only- like when you are sitting with your parents or the back row of the classroom, or in the room you share with two others who are sleeping or even worse- studying, etc. You just have to use text.

But with text comes a whole new language you got to learn- a language made up of ‘lol’, ‘ty’, ‘ne1’ etc. We can’t ignore the fact that we live in times when online chat and text messaging are the ‘normal’ ways of interacting with others- times when ‘ty’ and ‘np’ have started making casual and regular appearances in those rare face-to-face conversation. Heck- I’ve even seen resumes sprinkled with little smilies (emoticons) and ‘tyvm’.  Even whole books written in IM conversations- ‘TTYL’, ‘TTFN’, ‘L8r, G8r’ are a true reflection of the times we live in.

Even though RockeTalk is all about voice chat with voice (duh), pictures and videos, here are some terms you should know anyway- even on RockeTalk:

ASL= Age, Sex, location

LOL= Laugh Out Loud

Brb= Be right back

PM=Personal message

G2g= Got to go

TTYL= Talk To You Later

TTFN= Ta-Ta For Now

XOXOXO= hugs and kisses

Muaawh= Kiss (sound of a kiss)

ILU= I love you

CUL8R on RT= See you later on RockeTalk (Had to make that one … lol)

WTF= What the F#%&

LMAO= Laughing my ass off

ROFL= Rolling on the floor laughing

TY= Thank you

NP= No Problem

OMG= Oh my God

ATM= At the moment

Reading recommendation:

A must read for all 13+

The sequel… not a must read but good.

What the heck.. try this too…

I just had to- as a service to the users, my friends and all others who make their way in to the increasingly popular entertainment -online chatting. (Thank heaven -RockeTalk plays a huge part- they don’t need to be stuck to their computers) This is why:

The other day, as I was going about my regular ‘job’ as the Evangelist and RockeTalk’s main point of contact with its users, I was reminded of a time in my life- long, long ago… as a ‘newb’  - slang term for a newcomer to online gaming or an Internet activity – not to be mixed up with ‘noob/n00b’. It was my auto-response that I had set to ‘brb’ while I was working on the graphics and layout for an informational ‘teaser’ for RockeTalk that did it!

I was dutifully checking incoming messages, just in case something showed up that needed immediate attention- a help question or something, when I saw a message come in from one of the ‘seasoned’ users- ‘Are you reading this?’ And of course I responded yes. The next question- ‘What is brb?’ I quickly explained that it meant ‘be right back’.

As I was answering, I was making a quick note in my head of the times when users had very trusting come to me to ask such things… ‘lol’, ‘pm’, ‘ASL’…, reminding me that the terms regularly used in chat rooms were often not really clearly understood by users. The users- no newbies to the chat world, had been avid chatters from various chat sites for years, were at a loss and did not know who to turn to. Thank God I thought- on RockeTalk they can use voice.

I remembered sitting in the wee hours of the night, trying to stay awake while working on a project, having a blast downloading ‘free’ music from KAZAA… reading online forums on how to stay organized and focused lol… and playing Hearts with other online players while trying hard to figure out what ‘DH’ was or what in Pete’s name was ‘lol’ that kept showing up in every other sentence.

I was sure it was a secret language used by these people- I was so sure they were part of a cult and needed to have that ‘secret code’. One night, I could not take it anymore.  I knew I could not go on. It had to be done…

With my palms sweating, my heart rate going through the roof… As soon as the next ‘lmao’ showed up on the screen, I asked.

This is somewhat how the conversation went:

Game- Hearts – Shoot the moon.

Players:Duskybeauty (Me), Flybynite, Pussinboots, Strangersnthenite (Hey- it had become sort of routine for us to wait for each other to get online and play- this was before you could send offliners. They had a good sense of humor and I was that funny little Indian girl – an odd one to begin with)

Duskybeauty (me): Got to ask you something. Promise me you will not laugh.

Pussinboots: OMG u feel it it 2? Honey you live in SD, rt? Should I come? I’m just round the block… a very long block that is ..lol

Me (Sitting in my chair laughing): Nooooo. No. Not that. I mean.. you are cute and everything.. but..

Me: Its about these messages…

Pussinboots: You mean u get those 2? 

Me: But…I..

Pussinboots: LMAO.. but flybynite is mine. U lay off…. LOL.. don’t tell DH though ..lol…

Me: No. No. Not that. Promise you won’t tell anyone?

Pussinboots: That serious, yeh? Go on

Me: What is ‘LOL’?

Pussinboots: U r kidding, rt?

Me: Well.. no … (By now I was really squirming in my chair)

Well-I thought- there it was out there – the secret was out- I was not a part of their cult. They would all be laughing.

Turned out I was wrong. They had all asked the same question at some point!

That was then.

Well, now I’m at a point where I can give any text message/chat expert a run for their money. Thats not to say that I like to text. In fact I hate text messaging and avoid it as much as I can. I would much rather use my voice. I absolutely hate text messaging but I realize that text messaging has its place and given the situation (time and place), at times, is a necessity.

TTFN (Ta-Ta for now). Will be adding more from my list of interesting ‘text lingo’ from the text messaging era soon.. (OMG- TISLY -read- Oh my gosh-that is so last year) So… keep looking! CUL8 on RT (See you later on RockeTalk) Muaaw!!

BTW- You can download RockeTalk directly to your phone from http://m.RockeTalk.com  or for a cable download and for a list of supported phones, go to www.RockeTalk.com  the old fashioned way- internet from your computer. Or if you have a cool phone with Opera browser ..lol.. now we talking.. hehehe