A Tribute to Abbreviations...

k. This little alphabet has certainly gained a lot of importance these days. Just in case you, like me a while back, are wondering what the hell 'k' stands for, it is an abbreviation for 'okay'. Yes, it wasn't enough that it was first shortened to 'OK' but now it seems we are lazier and hence it is down to that one alphabet - k. Actually sometimes it's 'kk'; now I really wonder what that is supposed to mean (apparently it means the same thing!). I don't get it really but the irony is that I use it too, a lot actually. There are many more such abbeviations that I don't get, for instance 'y' for 'why' and 'u' for 'you', I mean why the sudden fondness for phonetics?! The list is endless actually, 'brb' stands for 'be right back', 'btw' for 'by the way' and the worst one 'lol' for 'laugh out loud'. Seriously, in a face to face conversation would you ever tell anyone to laugh out loud? My guess is NOT, but what do you know, in cyberspace anything is possible. I never really got the hang of 'XOXO' either but then I guess it's just me being old fashioned and wanting to read full words (and full sentences for that matter!) whenever I'm reading. Here's a typical example of how we simply crucify the pure English language:
A: hey
B: hi
A: wat up?
B: nothin. jus chillin.
A: cool. wanna hear a joke?
B: k
A: blah...blah...blah...
B: lol
A: listen i gotta go. later.
B: k. bye.

I wonder why it has become the way it has; is it just because life is speeding up and there is so little time for everything we do that we inadvertently resort to cutting down on the length of the words we use? I know that once upon a time there used to be endless leisure in which one could conduct correspondence in any manner of their choice and thus there was never a question of resorting to abbreviations of any sort. People actually used to spend hours and hours on composing the perfect letters. Those were the days when every piece of mail was almost a literary masterpiece. But now it's kinda tough to follow every damn rule in the book and hope to get the point across in the limited time you have as well as have a complete 'conversation' with the person in question so I guess this is the part where I heave a hugh sigh and bid goodbye and shed a few tears for the days gone by (in case you didn't notice, that rhymed!). Anyway, the point of this little monologue was to gently poke fun at those ridiculous abbreviations but somehow I seem to have (as usual) gone into philosophy. So kindly excuse my poor soul for it's erronous ways as I do bid you adieu.