Hey BAE! How was your New Year? I hope it was NSFW, if you know what I mean ;) LMAO, I can’t wait to see you. It’s been such a long year. OMG when I see you I have to tell you about this THOT I had to deal with at my new job that I got in the fall. I was SMH all day, every day. Hopefully, this year will be better. I think I’ll just YOLO the whole thing and see what happens. Anyway, I’ll tell you more when I see you. Bye!

If you found this paragraph just as annoying as I did, then you will agree with me in saying that you hope these acronyms will grow out of style very soon. I cannot lie and say that I have not used these acronyms, but in my defense, I have to say that it’s very hard not to pick them up when everyone around you is using them, too. Language is something that is very influential. For example, you can find yourself speaking with the accent of a country you didn’t grow up in just by spending a couple of weeks there.

So although I have used these acronyms before, I still must admit my distaste with them. After all, what happened to spelling out words? Will you really be any more late to wherever you’re going by typing a couple extra letters? I don’t think so. Would you actually say these acronyms out loud, in normal conversation? Would you ever actually say these phrases if they weren’t in their acronym form? I would certainly hope not.

Let us revisit the first paragraph and see how it’d sound if someone spoke this way in normal, verbal conversation:

“Hey BEFORE ANYONE ELSE. How was your New Year? I hope it was NOT SAFE FOR WORK, if you know what I mean ;) LAUGHING MY A** OFF I can’t wait to see you…OH MY GOD when I see you I have to tell you about this THAT H** OVER THERE I had to deal with…I was SHAKING MY HEAD all day…I think I’ll just YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE the whole thing…Bye!”

Clearly this paragraph doesn’t sound as good as it would if it were a text message and shortened down to it’s acronym form. Given, a few things work in this sentence such as “Oh my God” and “Shaking my head”, but things like THOT and BAE do not make sense syntactically. Not many people realize this while using such terms, and it really is unfortunate.

I understand that acronyms such as these are cultural and relevant to the times, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t take action against them. So with this new year and all the ones to come, let's make an effort to use them less. We would be doing each other a favor by explaining why we found something funny instead of implying that our butts fell off from the hilarity of it. Unless someone's butt actually did fall off, then I can see no reason why acronyms such as this one, and many others, should continue to be used. Also, I would want to hear what that joke was because if someone's butt ACTUALLY fell off because of it, it must be pretty damn good.

(Then again, maybe I won’t want to hear it. I’m pretty content with the location of my behind right now, and I think I would like it to stay that way.)