It’s so funny, I’m LOL. 

If you can understand what I just wrote, then congratulations, you’ve obviously graduated from Social Media Speak 101, Version 20, Update 1000.

I graduated from that course only a few years ago, mainly because I had teenage kids at the time who tutored me. Although by now, I’m sure those acronyms are probably face-palmingly passe. Maybe I need a refresher course.

Being a journalist – or as some would describe me, a word-Nazi – I’m finding the abbreviated form and bastardisation of the English language a bit hard to handle.

Using the letter K in a text as a substitute for okay is quite irksome and, frankly, slightly on the lazy side. Although, I must confess I have used it in response to messages from my kids, only because I know it annoys them too.

Gr8 may save you a nano-second in time when texting, but I don’t find it great at all.

The nonchalance shown to how words are spelt/not spelt correctly while texting/posting on social media drives me nuts. It’s “they’re living in their house over there”, not “their living in there house over they’re”. 

AND WHEN MY MESSAGES COMES THROUGH IN CAPITAL LETTERS, it doesn’t mean I’m angry or shouting at you. It means I’ve accidentally left my cap lock on. So there’s no need to be upset with me.

However, excessive use of exclamation points by me in a message is an entirely different story!!

And trying to read sarcasm in a text or social media post is rather hard without hearing the inflection. Unless you leave a winking emoji after your comment, I have no idea it’s a joke, you’re being sarcastic, or taking the mickey.

But what really confuses me the most, is when people “talk” entirely in emojis. I need an electronic translator just to understand the sentence.

Wouldn’t it be nice if, for a little while anyway, we put down our devices and started talking to real people in the true English language?

But until then I’ll have to do a refresher course in all things modern tech language.

:) or is that :( ...