Hot on the heels of Iv

[SandraSprocket]

I've seen n for and and b for the word be. Are we really getting so lazy we CBA to write words in full?

Ys we r. Rnt U?

Ano.

Abbreviations have always been used. Cod'n'chips, salt'n'vinegar etc.

You couldn't be arsed to write 'couldn't be arsed'.

The Romans were the masters of it though to be fair, carving on stone is a bit harder and more costly than typing a text.

We were using n for and and b for be on the 90s. It's hardly new
It probably wasn't new then either to be fair.

It seems a bit retro now - txtspk was sensible in the thumb-paining days before touchscreens, predictive text and autocomplete.

Definitely a place for it.
Can be time saving, straight to the point. I mean wtf says it all right? Why bugger about with more words?
Like colloquial language. We’re not all writing an English A level paper or addressing HM The King every day are we?

I write to the King and Queen every day.

We’re not all writing an English A level paper or addressing HM The King every day are we?

Lazy sods... HM, HRH...

Language develops - always has done. Leave it be and chill.

Yes you saw what I did there 😂

You'll tell me next that the Romans didn't have a word 'the' so it saved on stone space.

They ballesed it up with their number system though.

This is Pedants' Corner, not AIBU. Being lazy isn't "developing" language, either.

Laziness (or speed) may play into language evolution, surely? Think of all our commonplace elisions ... I CBA to write 'could not be arsed'.

However there's a point at which overshortening can result in it taking longer for the reader to decipher. The purpose of language is communication - if shortcuts of various sorts are both quickly written and read, that's fine. But if they place a burden on the reader then at that point I'd agree they're a negative mutation not a positively adaptive one.

Ffs. That is all.

This is not about language but about writing, because if you say it out loud it sounds the same depending on dialect or accent. "Will you (or u!) b coming to dinner with Fred n me?" (Fred an' me in some accents).

It's both. They're inextricably linked.
Would people write fish'n'chips if nobody said it like that?
I think mostly the spoken language shifts towards abbreviation and the written language follows .

With Fred n I, surely?

Fred is coming to dinner with you.

Fred is coming to dinner with me.

Fred is coming to dinner with you 'n' me.

Fred went to Leeds.

I went to Leeds.

Fred 'n' I went to Leeds.

Edit to say, take the two people apart, think how you would say it for each one separately and then put them back together.

I think she was joking, upinaballoon

My 27 year old cousin texts 'a no' for I know. It makes me want to scream. Even more so when it's occasionally written as anoooo. Plus I then get a weird Sybil from Faulty Towers flashback of her on the phone drawling "Oh I knooooow" and then laughing like a drain.

We went to see the Fawlty Towers play when we were in London recently... you're spot on.😂
I suppose she wouldn’t get the reference at all if you started responding ‘que?’ or ‘what?’.

I could always tell when DCs step mum had sent messages from their dads phone as she uses R to mean I'll

Itching to reply "Que¿" to her next message now <sits on hands>

Just the merest zephyr of a gentle whoosh.....