OMG, most of today’s new slang goes unspoken

Oh my God, we’re running out of conversation. Psychologists at UMKC found in a 20-year study that most of us talk less than we did the previous year, losing about 338 words per day. Give or take, that’s 120,000 fewer spoken words per person.

People are people, OC, we still keep in touch. Just in different ways. Where Romeo and Juliet once serenaded in the shadows, making promises on QT, the modern Romeo is likely to slide into Juliet’s DMs and declare that his Capulet bae is BFF, not FWB.

Consider those left outside the text tent, partially excluded by the acronym Millennials.Alamy

Okay, let’s pull it up. Your patience has been tested enough. Nine acronyms for 90 words: another symptom of the verbal usurpation of the written conversation. You may know some like OMG or 120K. Younger readers will know most of the stuff, from OC (of course) to FWB (friends with benefits), although ISTG (I swear to God) Boomer browser might have just abandoned this column or searched Google for five minutes.

On the face of it, the study by the Universities of Missouri-Kansas City (or UMKC – a much more polite way of introducing initials) jeopardizes traditional chatter, let alone discourse. Still, for those outside the text tent who are partially excluded by the acronym Millennials, spare a thought, assuming they want to join in the quiet conversation.

Back in the ’70s, when I was a cool school dork, we used this kind of slang to keep our oldies guessing. Lately though, young people’s tactics are alphabet soup, from WTV (whatever) to WYD (what are you doing?). Both initials had very high rates in 30 studies conducted among Australians seeking to unravel the contagiousness of the contraction.

Randoh Sallihall, a language enthusiast at Unscramblerer.com, a dictionary site for puzzle enthusiasts, led the data crawl. His team sifted through all of our text queries from the beginning of the year until mid-April this year. High on the charts were SYBA (shut up) and SMH, not a newspaper but nod.

“The most popular abbreviations were either this year’s trends or several years older. Trends are going viral on social media, pushing people to use abbreviations when chatting with friends or texting them,” Randoh said. Did you notice this? New slang remains unsaid because it was created for text.

Even chat can mean group chat via WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, or even F2F (face to face), if that’s still the case. As a man of a certain age, I cannot speak the text language. More precisely, it is a dialect that I have learned to master or just understand. When Melbourne band Kingswood released the single ICFTYDLM in 2014, I assumed it was a Scrabble rack with bonus tiles. The truth is that a tween’s DW (don’t worry) might well show my death sentence or Doctor Who. Judging by our search history, I’m not the only one who’s lost my fluency.

This raises an FAQ: Has this need for speed taken away from the advantage of clear communication? The fact that millions of us are eyeing the OTP (one true match) on DL shows that one person’s cool Insta post requires another person’s homework. Or maybe that’s the point. If you don’t know NGL (I won’t lie), you’re better off lying down with a book. Or direct PDQ to U3A in the CBD to call the last few remaining speakers.

davidastle.com, twitter.com/dontattempt

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