texting

INITIAL FINDINGS

/ TT / 4 Comments

more updates on 2025’s language landscape

Once again, I’m very grateful indeed to Randoh Sallihall of Unscramblerer.com for sharing his data on language usage online. I previously posted his analysis of last year’s slang lookups (online searches)* and this time his findings reveal the most popular internet text abbreviation lookups in 2025 so far, for the UK and the USA. I was amused to see SMH (‘shaking my head‘) featuring high in both lists. A few years ago I confidently stated in a BBC radio interview that this stood for ‘same here’ – as I had just been informed by a group of schoolkids. I was immediately and publicly corrected – and shamed – by presenter Anne McElvoy and invited journalist Hannah Jane Parkinson and the bitter experience has stayed with me.** It may be culturally significant also that Britain’s favourite apology – in the form of SOZ – doesn’t feature at all on the American list.

“Analysis of Google search data for 2025 so far reveals the most searched for text abbreviations in the UK.”

Most searched for text abbreviations in the United Kingdom:

1.      POV (39 000 searches) – Point of view.

2.      SMH (34 000 searches) – Shake my head.

3.      PMO (28 000 searches) – Put me on.

4.      ICL (17 000 searches) – I Can’t Lie.

5.      OG (16 000 searches) – Original gangster.

6.      OTP (16 000 searches) – One true pairing.

7.      NVM (13 000 searches) – Never mind.

8.      TM (11 000 searches)- Talk to me.

9.      SN (7 000 searches) – Say nothing.

10.   BTW (6 000 searches) – By the way.

11.   KMT (6 000 searches) – Kiss my teeth.

12.   FS (6 000 searches) – For sure.

13.   WYM (6 000 searches) – What you mean.

14.   HRU (6 000 searches) – How are you?

15.   ATP (5 000 searches) – At this point.

16.   SYBAU (5 000 searches) – Shut your b—h ass up.

17.   IGHT (5 000 searches) – Alright.

18.   ONB (4 000 searches) – On bro.

19.   WSP (4 000 searches) – What’s up?

20.   TY (4 000 searches) – Thank you.

21.   SOZ (3 500 searches) – Sorry.

22.   IDC (3 000 searches) – I don’t care.

23.   LDAB (3 000 searches) –  Let’s do a b-tch.

24.   PFP (3 000 searches) – Picture for proof.

25.   IBR (3 000 searches) – It’s been real.

26.   IYW  (3 000 searches) – If you will.

27.   TB (2 500 searches) – Text back.

28.   FYI (2 500 searches) – For your information.

29.   GTFO (2 500 searches) – Get the f–k out.

30.   HY (2 000 searches) – Hell yeah.

Most searched for text abbreviations in the United States:

1.      FAFO (254 000 searches) – F–k around and find out.

2.      SMH (166 000 searches) – Shake my head.

3.      PMO (101 000 searches) – Put me on.

4.      OTP (95 000 searches) – One true pairing.

5.      TBH (93 000 searches) – To be honest.

6.      ATP (85 000 searches) – At this point.

7.      TS (79 000 searches) – Talk soon.

8.      WYF (76 000 searches) – Where are you from.

9.      NFS (75 000 searches) – New friends.

10.   ASL (65 000 searches) – As hell.

11.   POV (63 000 searches) – Point of view.

12.   WYLL (59 000 searches) – What you look like.

13.   FS (58 000 searches) – For sure.

14.   FML (56 000 searches) – F–k my life.

15.   DW (55 000 searches) – Don’t worry.

16.   HMU (54 000 searches) – Hit me up.

17.   ISO (53 000 searches) – In search of.

18.   WSG (50 000 searches) – What’s good?

19.   IMO (48 000 searches) – In my opinion.

20.   MK (45 000 searches) – Mmm, okay.

21.   ETA (40 000 searches) – Estimated time of arrival.

22.   ICL (37 000 searches) – I Can’t Lie.

23.   MB (37 000 searches) – My bad.

24.   STG (29 000 searches) – Swear to god.

25.   ION (28 000 searches) – In other media.

26.   PFP (27 000 searches) – Picture for proof.

27.   NTM (27000 searches) – Nothing much.

28.   DTM (26 000 searches) – Doing too much.

29.   TTM (26 000 searches)- Talk to me.

30.   MBN (25 000 searches) – Must be nice.

31.   ETC (24 000 searches) – And the rest.

32.   BTW (23 000 searches) – By the way.

33.   WFH (21 000 searches) – Work from home.

34.   GMFU (20 000 searches) – Got me f—-d up.

35.   NGL (19000 searches) – Not gonna lie.

36.   SYBAU (19 000 searches) – Shut your b—h ass up.

37.   BTA (17 000 searches) – But then again.

38.   SB (17 000 searches) – Somebody.

39.   HBD (16 000 searches) – Happy Birthday.

40.   PMG (15 000 searches) – Oh my god.

41.   HY (15 000 searches) – Hell yeah.

42.   TMB (11 000 searches) – Text me back.

43.   WYS (10 000 searches) – Whatever you say.

44.   GNG (9 000 searches) – Gang (close friends or family).

45.   IKTR (8 000 searches) – I know that’s right.

46.   IKR (7 000 searches) – I know, right?

47.   ARD (6 000 searches) – Alright.

48.   IFG (5 500 searches) – I f—–g guess.

49.   HN (4 000 searches) – Hell no.

50.   TTH (3 000 searches) – Trying too hard.

A spokesperson for Unscramblerer.com commented on the findings: “Text abbreviations are the secret language of the internet. You could even call them an integral part of social media culture. Snappy, always changing and hard to understand. Texting abbreviations is all about saving time and appearing cool. Keeping up to date with the newest trending abbreviations is no easy task. Old meanings can change while new abbreviations are created. A recent study found that abbreviations might not be as cool as people think. Using abbreviations makes the sender seem less sincere. This also leads to lower engagement and shorter responses. There is nothing wrong with using abbreviations in casual conversations with friends and family. However it is best do draw a line for professional conversations. Context matters.”

Research was conducted by word finding experts at Unscramblerer.com.

We analyzed 01.01.2025 -05.03.2025 search data from Google Trends for terms related to text abbreviations.

Methodology: We used Google Trends to discover the top trending text abbreviations and Ahrefs to find the number of searches. America’s most popular text abbreviations can be discovered in Google Trends through the keyword variations of ‘meaning text’. Abbreviations are used most often on social media and texting. The 2025 top trending abbreviations are the least understood. People have to search for their meaning (example ‘TBH meaning text’). Ahrefs shows many variations of meaning searches like ‘text meaning’ or ‘means in text'(example ‘PMO meaning in text’) and similar keyword combinations(example ‘what does SMH mean in text’). We added up 100 search variations of top text abbreviations.

I was very grateful, too, when Claire Martin-Tellis of content marketing and digital PR specialists North Star Inbound contacted me with an update, again from the USA, on attitudes to outdated slang…

“As new slang terms like “Beta,” “GYAT,” and  “Skibidi,” continue to surface, it’s enough even to make Gen Z feel old! Language learning app Preply asked Americans of all ages to weigh in on their favorite era of slang. Here is what decade reigns supreme:

  • Over ⅓ of Americans say the 1990s is their favorite decade for slang.
  • Men surveyed preferred the 1970s while women preferred the 1990s.
  • “Baloney,” “take a chill pill,” and “bogus” are the three most popular slang terms Americans want to see come back.

*https://language-and-innovation.com/2024/11/18/the-search-for-slang/

**the embarrassment is still audible here…https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06vs6g2

…PUNCTUATED BY RUDENESS

/ TT / Leave a comment

5 engaging ways to teach punctuation ...

Articles published earlier this week reignited debate about punctuation – one of the favourite subjects for online peevers and pedantic Twitterati. The articles seemed to be suggesting that traditional punctuation, or some of its components, could now be misinterpreted or convey quite different meanings to those originally intended.

The articles in fact were focusing on the full-stop or period as used in messaging apps, in particular on WhatsApp. Younger users of the platform reported that a full-stop at the end of a message indicated aggression, grumpiness or passive-aggression, as opposed to the neutral finality signalled in more traditional contexts.

And this  – context – is the key. The young devotees of messaging apps are unconcerned with the formal written English demanded in the case of essays, business letters, reports, even mainstream journalism. Their interactions are happening somewhere else and intended to achieve something else, too. My 20 year-old son tells me that his messaging environments simply make traditional usages redundant – and worse, if applied they cause misunderstandings in tone and affect.

Mentioning this on Twitter provoked this response: ‘I’m Gen X — part of the generation that invented the internet. As the late Rutger Hauer said, “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.” My cohort literally invented all internet and messaging and texting traditions. Some spotty oik’s opinion is non-salient.’

Some other older internet and phone users were equally indignant, fearing they were being required to adopt the sloppy or unconventional habits of callow youth, but if we’re having to message across generations (which probably happens rarely anyway) we/they won’t make the same assumptions/impose our conventions on one another, surely?

 
Like all instances of language in use the language of messaging is context-sensitive and depends on interlocutors’ intentions, assumptions and reception of the ‘utterances’ in question. We adjust our conventions to accommodate – if we can, so we should indeed worry about full-stops, but only on WhatsApp, Facebook Messaging or Instagram.
 

The crucial point is that the electronic communications we are considering, although they have to be typed, are not examples of writing as we know it, but of something else. Messaging is effectively a verbal imitation of the very rapid to-and-fro of informal speech and that’s what it tries to render with its novel disregard of commas, colons and semi-colons, ellipses (the … that I am addicted to) and its innovative play with capitals, full-stops and exclamation marks. The notorious initials and acronyms – LOL, SMH, POS and the like –  were invented in order to cope with accelerated exchanges, although my children tell me that this abbreviation style is ‘very 2012’ and ‘so over’. Like many grownups I came to it much too late and was humiliated on national radio for thinking SMH meant ‘same here’, as mischievous young informants had told me (for the uninitiated it means ‘shaking my head’ in disbelief or exasperation). I do still use IMHO (in my humble opinion) when pontificating on Twitter. If feeling particularly passive-aggressive, IMVHO.

Image result for punctuation in messaging

Because neither conventional writing nor sparse message-speak can convey the tone and import of this kind of conversation,  emoji are required to compensate for body language, tone of voice, etc. Emoji can to some extent contribute the missing tonal and affective dimension to digital text but there is still no easy way to flag sarcasm, for example (I never ever come across ~*~sparkle sarcasm~*~ punctuation, or the 2011 attempt at a sarcasm font using back-sloping italics).

The two recent articles that triggered the latest debates were from the BBC website:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-49182824

…and the Telegraph:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/life/full-stop-onwhatsapp-cutting-weapon-choice-use-wisely/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_tw

…but the first article based on actual research to raise this issue actually dates back to 2015:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2015/dec/09/science-has-spoken-ending-a-text-with-a-full-stop-makes-you-a-monster?CMP=share_btn_tw

…and Binghampton University usefully summarised the topic in 2017:

https://phys.org/news/2017-11-punctuation-text-messages-cues-face-to-face.html

I talked on BBC Radio about the full-stop and the punctuation age-gap and a vox-pop carried out by the BBC in Derry confirmed that, at least in that city, younger messagers and texters were all familiar with the new conventions and with the misunderstandings that could arise.

One year later the punctuation issues were still being debated on Twitter, and summaries posted to help teachers and students. One such is here, from Rhona Graham at Queen Mary:

http://linguistics-research-digest.blogspot.com/2020/07/ok-ok-and-ok-how-we-use-punctuation-to.html

In March 2021 aggressive punctuation made the headlines anew. This from Metro:

Lecturer sues after being sacked for ‘aggressive’ use of question marks in texts

At the end of that year, Professor Simon Horobin‘s piece appeared in the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/28/punctuation-complicated-full-stop-culture-war

In February 2025 concerns about Gen Z’s writing style were still making news:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/18/death-of-capital-letters-why-gen-z-loves-lowercase

And in October the Guardian ran a lightweight piece on the gendered exclamation mark:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/28/exclamation-marks-why-do-women-use-them-three-times-as-much-as-men?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other