A friend said to me that this post is very funny and that I should refresh/repost it. Just in case you missed it. So here it is.
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The first time I came across an abbreviation was years ago, when I was taking a statistics class in public health. I hate statistics to start with...but the biggest mind fuck was when I came across - n.a.
I cracked my brains trying to figure out what n.a meant. Did they mean nah as in no...can't be. I flunked that class because of the n.a. It turned out to be non-applicable or non-available. Am still not sure...
Things got stickier when I started using the net. I would see lol, roflmao and lmao.
I used to think to myself why I am receiving this lol thing in my emails ? Must be some secret code for something important.
It took me a year to understand that lol meant laughing out loud and its variations - rolling on the floor laughing my ass off and the shorter version without rolling on the floor just - laughing my ass off.
Then it got even more complicated with words like imho and rip. Again, too timid to ask what those meant, I pretended I knew...only to find out that imho is not the name for some secret organization and rip has nothing to do with ripping things apart. They actually stand for - in my humble opinion and rest in peace.
This mind fuck was not only limited to the net. Text messages on my cell phone bore the same cryptic wordings that left much room for major misunderstandings...
I remember dating this guy and after a series of back and forth messages, he typed
" btw, dinner ?".
I hardly knew the guy and he was proposing btw - in between dinner ?
What in between dinner, what does he want to do in between dinner ? I thought to myself...
O. put my mind at ease and told me to "chill out". BTW stands for by the way.
But things got even more complicated when abbrev. were used face to face, in reality.
My first exposure to it, in reality, was during one of those nights when I was bored out of my wits and was insanely zapping away - unlike me, because I hardly ever watch T.V.
Anyways, I fell on the Jerry Springer show. Prior to that, I had no clue who the fuck Jerry Springer was. WTF stands for who the fuck and what the fuck - just in case you need to add more abbrev. to your dic. - dictionary, that is.
So this yankee guy straight out of a trailer looking like a friggin elephant was whining about his yankee "woman" who looked like a hippopotamus, being caught with the guy from the next door trailer who looked like an tattooed ape...
I thought to myself, mashallah, this must be America.
And this elephant kept saying - ya know, ya know, basi, basi...she did me wrong...
Another boggling code. WTF is basi ?
basi...basi...maybe this hippopotamus girlfriend's name - g.f. was Basi, I thought to myself...
But no, it turns out that basi means basically.
This definitely is America.
But wait, it gets better...I mean, it gets worse, much worse...
Arab wankers have caught the disease too.
Take this acquaintance of mine. We were sitting in a café, some months ago and she said - do you fancy o.j. ?
The only o.j. I knew of, was O.J. Simpson and hell I did not fancy him at all.
So I said - no I don't fancy o.j.
She said - but o.j. is so good for you.
I said - the guy is a murderer
She said - Are you crazy or something ?
I said - wtf is o.j. then ?
She said - o.j. stands for Orange Juice.
I said - Orange Juice, ahhhhhhhhhhhh, orange juice. And why the fuck don't you say Orange Juice ?
She said - Everyone knows what o.j. means. You are so behind...
Of course this Arab wanker pretends she's American when she has just visited America for two weeks, and not only that - she is of Palestinian origins, to make matters worse. But the accent, oh my God, the accent. Beats any trailer trash of a yankee.
The plot thickened and Layla was still very behind...in the Americanized English language.
Here I was invited for coffee at another acquaintance's place.
While in the kitchen she shouted :
- Layla do you want some "areos" with your coffee ?
Silence...
WTF is areos, I thought to myself...
I pressed hard and quick - areos, areos, areos...
Did she mean a rose ? Why would she want to give me a rose with my coffee ? Is she gay or something ?
No it can't be.
areos...aerospace ? Could it be an abbrev. for aerospace or anything to do with air ?
What is she planning to do - offer me an oxygen mask with my coffee?
No that can't be either.
Think quick ya Layla, think quick.
areos...areo...the only areo I know is a slang word in Arabic meaning...ahemm, his dick. Surely she is not offering someone's dick with my coffee ?!
She repeated - Shoo ya Layla, do you want areos ?
To be on the safe side - not knowing what areos meant, I shouted back - No thanks.
She walked in with the coffee and a bowl of cookies...
- Try them, I am sure you will like them, she said.
- Thanks, am not too keen on biscuits...
- Can't be. You must try oreos.
- Oreos ?
- Yes, you don't know oreos ?
I thought to myself wtf is oreos ?
- Ya Allah, ya Layla, you are so out of it. Oreos is the famous American bisssscuiiiiit.
- Oh, it's a biscuit is it ?
- Sure - oreos, how can anyone not know what oreos are ? Nabil gets them specially for me, whenever he is in Amrrrikkka.
Btw, I basi, lmao, sipping my coffee, thinking to myself, wtf, I prefer coffee to o.j. and thanking the Universe that oreos turned out to be n/a in my case - nothing but junk yankee biscuit. I also promised myself to keep away from Arab wankers - potential gfs trying so hard to ape Amrrrikkka.
Imho, the English language has been massacred by Americans who are too lazy to pronounce a full word. May the English language r.i.p.
