"Soz. That was totes awkies beb."
Translation: I'm sorry. That was a really awkward situation, my friend.
OMG. WTF? I thought it was FTW but now, FML.
Translation: Oh my Gosh. What in the hey now? I thought it was just dandy but now life is not worth living.
Ceebs. Today is defs going to be downer
Translation: I cannot be bothered. Today is definitively going to be one hell of a day.
Ok, hear me out because I realise that for those of you who know me, I may be at risk of sounding like an awful hypocrite. So in the in the interest of full disclosure, allow me to admit that yes, I am guilty of throwing the occasional OMG and FML into the world. I am also guilty of uttering those God awful, new fangled abbreviations of 'totes' and 'awkies', but rest assured it is only in fun, I swear!
There are however people I know (mostly hipsters and the like) that use the words totes and awkies for evil (and by evil, I mean in real, normal conversation). It's a craze that has swept the young nation and I personally, am NOT a fan because quite frankly, it makes a nincompoop out of you and me.
Yes, a nincompoop. It makes you sound like a nincompoop, kind of the way those kids in the nineties who spoke like ninja turtles sounded when they said the words 'cowabunga dude' and 'totally radical'. Although, if those drugged out surfies were the teens of today, rest assured they would be saying 'cowabungs dude, that's totes rad" because apparently nonsensical abbreviations are now the epitome of cool.
I realise that abbreviations have always been around, if only because I remember being 11 and thinking that dropping the 'ed' off of the word 'wicked' made me a shaman of the English language. I would get around telling people how 'wick' that movie on TV was last night and how 'wick' my new shoes were. Everything was 'wick'. It was a craze that swept the grade five class of Highbury Primary school and in many ways, perhaps it was the original 'totes' or 'awkies' but lets be honest, that doesn't make it sound any less dumb.
The English language is constantly evolving and new words (and abbreviations there of), will always be appearing, much to our dismay or delight. However, just like I cringed when 'D'oh' made it into the dictionary, I live in fear of the day 'totes' becomes a legitimate word or 'c' and 'u' replace the original versions of the words because digital media finally won the good fight.
So there you go, my little rant about totes hating abbreviated hipster words. Will try my utmost not to fall victim to using them
Nadia X
