kids texting & codes

[ohiomom28]

Thats not true. It all depends which phone company your with, and the type of phone you have. Here in canada, with Bell you have a text/character limit. With Rogers you dont. At least not with my smartphone/android.

My Android will let me text more than 160 characters but the person gets it in more than one message

 

[goofyintoronto]

My Android will let me text more than 160 characters but the person gets it in more than one message

I see. Now that I think about it, I think its the same here as well. There's no limit, but its sent over a couple of pages. ...oops! Your right!

 

[funkychunkymonkey]

http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php

has a huge list! just FYI- some are not so approprate for family reading

 

[aimyourarrowshigh]

I don't know how old the OP's son is and I'm not sure if it's just around here, but 99% of the people my age (late teens/twenties) would never use most of the abbreviations listed. I'll use "omg" (don't most people?), "lol" and "idk" but I haven't heard of a lot of the ones on those lists and wouldn't be caught dead saying things like "u" instead of "you", "r" instead of "are/our", etc. (although I'd use them jokingly with my friends haha). However, 95% of 'adults' I know (aka people over 30) are likely to send texts that read like "r u ok? b home l8r".

 

[caitlinsmom]

Took me forever to figure out what hmu, smh and nmjc meant.

and I hate when kids type inr instead of ikr

 

[shortbun]

I'm old(58), I text, I use all the codes. If I am writing professionally, I am able to write using full words, correct punctuation and I don't judge people who don't-online. Online, it's all about shortcuts and fun. It's recreational communication. If you send me a letter and want me to pay attention; get someone to edit your errors.

 

[Sgt Mickey]

YOLO you only live once has been all per Facebook lately.

 

[Southernmiss]

I don't know how old the OP's son is and I'm not sure if it's just around here, but 99% of the people my age (late teens/twenties) would never use most of the abbreviations listed. I'll use "omg" (don't most people?), "lol" and "idk" but I haven't heard of a lot of the ones on those lists and wouldn't be caught dead saying things like "u" instead of "you", "r" instead of "are/our", etc. (although I'd use them jokingly with my friends haha). However, 95% of 'adults' I know (aka people over 30) are likely to send texts that read like "r u ok? b home l8r".

I didn't start texting until a year ago. When I started texting, DS told me after I had texted him a few times "Mom, we don't use those abbreviations, we type out the words. It annoys me when you send me texts with abbreviations."

So I took the clue and stopped--thank goodness I have a qwerty keyboard!

 

[nmmom95]

YOLO you only live once has been all per Facebook lately.

It's from "the Motto." I hate that song.

As for the abbreviations, my son doesn't use many, either. Like aimyourarrowshigh, he just uses a few. I know he and his friends use hmu, which means hit me up. Someone sends a group message like "movies tonight? hmu."

Abbreviations don't bother me. Most people here do it all the time.
MK, DHS, BTMRR...

 

[topolino]

It's not just kids using it, and it's not just while texting. Fully grown adults on this board use code like YMMV, IMHO, FWW and TBH all the time.

Personally, I don't know what they just don't type out the actual words.

 

[iheartdisney]

FTW -- for the win -- I had to have it explained to me because it meant something entirely different when I was a kid.

WTH - what the heck (or the other word)

I was completely thrown the first time i heard FTW used as For The Win.

I find text shorthand FAR less annoying than DISboards shorthand. POTC, BTMRR, F!. Is it too much effort to just type the word Pirates?