Wednesday, February 20, 2008

overheard

This morning on the metro I was sitting behind a young woman who was making some phone calls. The first one was to some office and goshgolly she was *trying* to step up the formality of her speech. She was getting transferred around and kept asking people if she was going to be able to prove residency with a state ID, except she was saying, "Is it suffice to have a state ID?" Ooh. Try "sufficient" next time. Or try using a normal sentence that you know how to say.

Other source of entertainment: After that, she called a friend to report, and at the end of the conversation she said - said - "TTYL." What? The kids are speaking in IM-speak now? I guess I'd heard "OMG" out loud, but I thought it was being used ironically. Does it make me an old fogey if I prefer to say "omigod" and "talktoyalater"?

6 comments:

Coloradan said...

I think I heard an NPR segment a while back about how kids these days are incorporating im-speak into real live conversations. One teenager explained that if you say "lol" you're acknowledging that the person you're talking to made a joke, but not one funny enough to actually laugh at.

I would never do that to someone. I mean, WTF?

towwas said...

Oh yes! I've heard people say "lol" before, you're right, in just that context. Weird. I guess that's how us old people use "that's funny."

Unknown said...

Melanie says "J/K!!" when she makes a snarky comment. I can't tell whether she's doing it ironically or not. I can say this, though - if we're learning about it from NPR, we're way to old to ever understand it.

MonkeyMom said...

I said "brb" (berb) to the Monkey the other night. He was all "what's that?"

I predict it's only a matter of a few years before it's a complete role reversal...

David J said...

The other day I said "Oh Emm Eff Gee smiley emoticon exclamation point exclamation point exclamation point one exclamation point one" to my wife, and she hit me in the face.

towwas said...

Ok, well, now that you guys mention it, I have heard LOL, J/K, and WTF from the mouth of a teenager...all the same teenager, a particularly world-weary high school junior in the Christmas show. She seems to say them ironically. I think.

Kids these days. I just don't get it. (The old fogey question is hereby closed.)