Breaker breaker 1 9…whats your 10-20? Remember CB radios. I had one in my car in the late 70’s. My “handle” was Fritzmaster. I had a dog named Fritz. I remember my boyfriend at the time Earl’s was Texaco Star. And I remember that my dad’s was Cisco kid. I have no idea why on that one. I do remember how much fun it was to converse back and forth with another car while driving down the road. This was of course before the days of cell phones. I bet the truckers, who had been communicating before the public started installing cb radios in their vehicles absolutely hated it when cbs became popular. They had to regularly pull a 10-27 to get their business done I’m sure (that’s switch channels) as the airways became full of kids playing on their parents cb’s.
I only knew a few of the codes back then. 10-4 meaning signing off, 10-20 meaning location, 10-10 standing by.
I feel like that sometimes now with all the texting and email codes that have become a part of our culture. Rare to find someone that doesn’t use LOL or JK or BRB (laugh out loud, just kidding, be right back) I’m told that teenagers have a text language all their own so that their parents don’t know what they are talking about if they should happen to check their phone.
Even on facebook and email and other social network sites the use of codes has become pretty prevalent. LMAO, OMG, TTYL to name a few. With a few more clicks and a few more letters added you can form a whole sentence. You can even put codes together. For instance, if someone tells you something really, really funny you may respond OMG, ROFLMAO.
The online dating sites have opened up a whole new realm of codes to figure out. FWB (friends with benefits) NSA (no strings attached), HWP (height weight proportionate) D/DF (disease/drug free…would you really admit it if you weren’t? seriously?)
I have made up a few of my own to describe some of the men on these sites. NRTPITP (not really the person in the picture) PTTYA (picture taken 20 years ago)…. The NRDLBDIMH (not really divorced legally but divorced in my heart) guys, LLAD (lies like a dog), TTMSOTSC (trying to make sense of these stupid codes). SSOWNSA (seeking sex only with no strings attached) Good luck with that one buddy! IDHACWIAUTSS (I don’t have a clue why I am using this stupid site).
Imagine if everyone just took the time to type out the entire word or phrase. Would that drastically slow them down? Maybe on the sending end but if you are texting or emailing or facebooking or online dating site responding to me then you need to account for the fact that I can’t respond until I figure out what the initials mean.
Cleaning out old files the other day I came across some “love letters” written to me a long time ago. These had no “codes”, no abbreviations (well except for a few xoxoxox’s) and reading them was simple. No guess work.
Here is an example of an actual email I got from one of the guys on the POF (Plenty of Fish) dating site that I chatted with briefly last week.
Dear Elan58 (my code name on the dating sites)
I have really enjoyed im’ing with you. IDK if I told you but FWIW, I really think you are funny and are someone I’d like to GTK. Even if you are interested in FO, CD or CTHDW and I am looking for SR leading to PM I still think we should GTKEO. Who knows, even if there is no love connection we could end up BFFs. LTS. LKN4LV
Took me a while to translate but I finally accomplished that. Well I did have to ask what GTK was but once he cleared that up it was easy to decipher GTKEO.
In ENGLISH his message said he enjoyed INSTANT MESSAGING with me. I DON’T KNOW if I told you but FOR WHAT ITS WORTH……GET TO KNOW …….interested in FRIENDS ONLY, CASUAL DATING, COMPANION TO HAVE DINNER WITH ………….SERIOUS RELATIONSHIP …..POSSIBLE MARRIAGE ……….GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER And of course we could end up Best Friends Forever. LETS TALK SOON
Ok I did make up his user name to protect his identity. He cbak (could be a keeper)
Doubtful…unless he stops the abbreviations. LOL
Its like trying to figure out what someones license plate letters spell. Once I spent a whole school year dropping off the boys, usually behind a car that had a tag that read SAGHI02 . Every day I would rack my brain trying to figure out what it meant. Finally, one day I just got out of my car, walked up and knocked on the window and said “what does your tag mean?” She just looked at me like I was a lunatic. Its my last name she said. Sahgi. Boy was I disappointed. Once I had a completely random tag that said 4IM2BZ. Or something like that. Which ironically described me to a tee.
These days there are dummy books for everything. I haven’t checked lately but I bet there’s a book called Texting codes for dummies. Or Daters guide to online dating site codes. I need to order both. First I need to check my emails which depending on who sent them and how bz they are may take a few minutes or all night.
GN all.
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