The vocabulary I use with my friends is mostly abbreviations and combinations of other words that save us from actually pronouncing them separately. At our apartment, if someone announces that they are taking a "b show," (pronounced shau) everyone knows they are referring to a body shower, one where you don't wash your hair, therefore making it much faster. After that, everyone may indulge in some fresh baked "cooks," or cookies.
We also have names for people that have come about by accident. My younger sister, Dani, is forever "Dank" to my roommates, as that is the first choice that comes up when you try to text her name. "Thermo" is is our friend Theron, another texting related creation.
My boyfriend and I are constantly stretching our English muscles with displays of language manipulations: combining phrases to make words only we will understand. When we first met, we discovered a shared concern for men who have large "man boobs," or "moobs." One might even call them "super man boobs." From this, we now refer to them as "moopers." When something is extra, ridiculously great, is "ribedonkulous." Its origin unknown, we think it may have ALSO been texting related.
With my family, we share a discourse based on shared memories and experiences. In a setting with friends, our discourse comes from our everyday life, the things we use, and possible immaturity that seeps through the brilliant, college exterior.
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3 comments:
I can relate to the use of abbreviations as language. Compared to other posts, I feel more like an insider to this community. I dont use the same abbreviations, but I use similar ones. I call the library, the lib., and the food store, yummies. Any words that can be combined will be, as long as they are shortened. I will never be a part of this community but I understand the community. I feel that every relationship, friendship and boyfriend/girlfriend, eventually has abbreviations for common events or people. Everyone loves a clever play on words, and any manipulation of words is well rewarded in a friendship community
I can especially relate to words that arise from texting errors. My friend Susie and I also go by Surge and Drin because it is the first words that pop up for our names on text messaging! I also I really enjoyed your new term for "moobs" (my personal favorite). I may have to pick up the "b show" term because it is a frequent activity for me! Word play is fun and I'm glad there are other people in the world who enjoy spicing up their vocabularies on a daily basis. Thanks for your blog, I chuckled as I read it.
Man, I wrote this long-ass comment only to realize I didn't do the damn word verficiation and so it didn't go through. nuts! Okay. I was laughing about the texting thing. I text when I drive (I know. Hell in a handbasket) and I use T9 a lot,w ithout looking at it before I send it. Did you know the word happy comes out as gassy? In my phone it does. So I proceeded to tell a bunch of peeps that I was gassy. Fabulous. I feel like somewhat of an insider on this because I do similar things, and I think it's relevant to our generation our texting habits overflowing into conversation, as well as smooshing words together, because thats just fun. I think it shows your clever, witty nature, contrary to you believe it's immature. Which, it may be immature, but by god, it's so fun to be immature some times!
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