Dr Arianna Berardi-Wiltshire: Massey University linguistics expert on text slang falling out of fashion with younger users

Texting words like LOL and OMG may not be as cool as it once was.

A US study has found people using abbreviations or slang in texts sound 'stupid' to others.

Massey University linguistics expert Dr Arianna Berardi-Wiltshire says slang seems to have become less common.

She says changing tech may play a part - with phones now having full keyboards and predictive spelling.

"Young people are much more relationally aware than people were in the past - they know, quite often, when it's appropriate to use them."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listen.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Of course, some heaps of us will have watched Polkinghorn
documentary last night, so we have a little chat about
that in just a few minutes time. First up, though,
if you're one of the people in this world who
enjoy using the text abbreviations, you need to stop in
you know what I'm talking about here right sending things
like brb, lol or wyd What you're doing, It's got

(00:20):
to stop because new research out of the US has
found that no matter how much you think that the
rest of us like reading your text abbreviations, we do not.
Doctor Ariana Berardi Wiltshire is a linguistics expert at for
Massi University and with us. Now, Hello, Hi, what's the problem.
Why does it annoy us? Is it because the person
sending it to us just looks lazy? Ah?

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yes, that's basically the short of it. It seems to
signal poor investment in whatever communication we're engaging with. So
you couldn't even take the time to spell that out completely.
That's kind of the feeling that we get. Is that
really most said to us?

Speaker 2 (00:56):
I mean I would look at it if somebody had
sent it to me, I would just not think that
they'rearticularly serious persons. Do you know what I mean? It
feels like something that a twelve year old would see
somebody else.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, And is it part of it, right, yes, yes,
it's also part of it. Yes, it's sometimes you get
the feeling when they use when people use too many abbreviations,
that they're trying too hard to kind of convey some
sort of you know, sense of vith or you know,
and no, but people seem to do it less and

(01:26):
less anyway, even younger people these days, they tend to
use abbreviations less and less.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Why do you think that is, Well.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
It's technology has changed now, we have predictive spelling, we
have full keyboards on our phones. So and also I
think that there's a sense that young people are much
more relationally aware than people were in the past, and
so they know quite often. I have two teenage daughters.
Actually they know quite often when it's appropriate to use

(01:54):
them and when it's not. And you know, that's reassuring.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Seems to be also that because you were talking about
predictive texting, right and the order correct that you have
on your phones and stuff, you actually would have to
make more of an effort to say s R R
Y on your phone than to say sorry, true, wouldn't you?

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, it's true. You're a try yes exactly, yes, exactly.
You're doing it for a purpose, and sometimes there is
a purpose why you would use abbreviations. And sometimes it's humor.
You want to be funny or so people use ong
a lot, but sometimes they just want to be quick.

(02:33):
You know, I'm guilty of having used the occasional K
with my children. You know, can you can you pick
up milk on the way home? K? So you know
there are users for it.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
But yeah, jesus, my mum just sent me a K,
I'd hang up on her. Hey, Arianna, thank you, thank
you very much, doctor Arianna Bararti woelschair, who's a linguistics
expert at Massive University. Some Peter Peter straight on the
old text machikon Waite he was on nine two nine.
Who just sent me an ffs. Now, there's a carve
out for that. You are allowed to do that one.

(03:05):
And simply you're allowed to do that one because I
don't know if you've tried to spell squear words on
your iPhone, but they make that very difficult, and so
if you just go for the old FFS. I understand
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