It's unread not "on read"

[GiveMyHeadPeaceffs]

I'm seeing this more and more on here and it really irritates me more than it should but here we are. "On read" doesn't even make sense! It's "unread"...this post will probably be unread but at least I've had my tiny rant

I love this article from Susie Dent about young women being the drivers of evolution in language. https://inews.co.uk/opinion/international-womens-day-young-women-innovators-english-language-2190193

I'm guessing this is a perfect example!

@WickieRoy maybe it is age related, my friends that I walked with were between 40-60 and from various walks of life. You live and learn, it's not a phrase I'd use as it sounds clunky and wrong to me but sure, I stand corrected.

I really like the conciseness of it. Definitely one for the modern age! I'm 40 but chronically online. My friends would know it but my mum wouldn't.

I'm trying to think of other similar terms but I'm drawing a blank. There must be some though.

They've "read", and left you with it. So "on read" is "read but not replied". GenZ much, yo.

I'm nearly 40 and wouldn't use the phrase myself, but know what it means.

I suppose your suggested 'as read' would make some logical sense if it were referring to the message itself, but whenever I've encountered the phrase 'on read', it referred to the person, not the message. E.g. 'She left me on read', a bit like leaving someone 'on hold' on the phone.

Exactly this. 'Read' is a status in this context.

To be fair to OP, I've only recently got Whatsapp on my phone (I'm 63, in my defence and I've never needed it), so all the 'leaving things on read' meant absolutely nothing to me, and this sounds like exactly the sort of mistake that I would make.

I'm not always 'down wiv the yoof' and sometimes make mistakes that make my kids howl (never going to send the aubergine emoji to someone making moussaka again...). We live and learn.

never going to send the aubergine emoji to someone making moussaka again...

😂I pretended to my DS that I thought MILF meant 'mothers I'd like to befriend'. Which I think it should.

Do you have to do 'Whatsapp' in order to understand what this thread's about?

It's not just WhatsApp, it's any form of messaging where you can see that someone has read your message. If they read but don't reply, they've left you on read.

If the message is delivered but they don't read it, the message is unread.

It’s pretty unusual not to use WhatsApp if you use any form of text communication. Has all the same functions as standard text messages but always free and you can message more than one person at once, which can be handy. I hardly use my phone’s text message function now.