Kitteh is my BFF: The Historical / Social Context of Abbreviated Speech and Intentional Misspelling

I became suddenly curious today about the origin of the word "okay" and, in reading the Wikipedia entry on the subject, discovered that there have been previous fads not only involving "comic misspellings" but fads of rampant abbreviation, even abbreviation of the comic misspellings.

According to the late etymologist Allen Walker Read:

"The abbreviation fad began in Boston in the summer of 1838 ... OFM, "our first men," and used expressions like NG, "no go," GT, "gone to Texas," and SP, "small potatoes." Many of the abbreviated expressions were exaggerated misspellings, a stock in trade of the humorists of the day. One predecessor of OK was OW, "oll wright," and there was also KY, "know yuse," KG, "know go," and NS, "nuff said."

No doubt that some folks circa 1838 were more amused by the fad than others. It also seems to serve different purposes now in the era of the txt msg. In between 1838 and the event of instant messaging, we've had candy conversation hearts, vanity license plates, and the song titles of the artist previously and currently known as Prince (i.e., Nothing Compares 2 U).

So, icanhascheezburger.com is a resurfacing of an old trend. In 1838 I bet it was a lot harder to come by winsome photos of marine mammals holding plastic buckets, though.



In memory of Minazo the seal, 1994 - 2005.

Word Wars

I just saw this documentary about the Scrabble tournament circuit...which I recommend with the caveat to some viewers that there's some pretty rough "street" language and a bit of illegal drug use. For one thing, it was comforting to see a film about people who are so odd in such a benign way. For another, it made me want to start reading the dictionary. Not necessarily to improve my Scrabble game. I learned that there is at least a 200 point average difference between me and people who do nothing but play Scrabble. Not long ago I had an informal tournament with one of the smartest people I know in the whole world and beat her in very close matches by taking advantage of her nurturing--motherly, if you will--nature (though it's true I was taking narcotic painkillers at the time) so I think that's really as, um, high as I need to climb in the Scrabble world. But in the universe of words known and unknown I'm feeling like I barely know a few that I tend to repeat over and over.

Here's one I learned in the movie: exordia.

I, and many of us, may be a bit more interested in the meanings of the words than a ranked Scrabble player tends to be, apparently. They have to memorize too many words to bother with definitions most of the time. Also there have been relatively few female Scrabble champions and in the film some of the women interviewed speculate that this may be due to the fact that women just can't bring themselves to care about Scrabble with quite the same obsessive intensity of some of the menfolk. I smell a thesis or dissertation here. Anyone? Anyone?