abbreviations gone wild
You may be using too many abbreviations in your everyday vernacular if you find yourself on the phone with your husband, having a conversation like this:
Drew: Tally* is already curled up on my chest, purring…
*Tally is our cat–but you already figured that out, considering he purrs, right?
Me: (having literally just run into the wall)…ouch…
Drew: Babe, you can’t say that.
Me: Say what?
Drew: Say, “gotch,”
Me: Um…gotch?
Drew: Yeah, when I told you about Tally, you said “gotch,” you know, you abbreviated “gotcha” to just “gotch” and well, you just can’t shorten everything!
Me: (starting to laugh now…but instead of saying watch me! I decide to explain…) I know that sounds like something I might do, but I really didn’t; I ran into a wall and said “ouch” under my breath…
Drew: (recognizing that sadly, running into a wall is something I do fairly often) Oh. Good. I thought for a second your abbreviations had gotten out of control…
So that conversation taught me two things:
1). I do abbreviate words a lot; but mostly with my sister Jenna cause we both think it’s so funny, but I guess I do it with Drew, too.
2). I do really run into things much more often than is normal. People are under the impression that because I am a dancer I do not run into things like walls and tables and sometimes even trees; this is just not true.
and ok, so there’s 3). I actually think it is really funny to annoy Drew with my abbreviations and so try to talk to him about wearing flips, getting comf, if he needs to wash any unds (okay, so I got that one from Darby’s mom, I admit), or if something is my B (this particular gem annoys my brother Jason to no end; he says that to shorten a one-syllable word like bad really makes no sense at all. Fuel to the fire, Jase!) or not as much as possible…
But here’s the thing: I have noticed that Drew has adopted the word comf as his own, and uses it like it’s in the dictionary with all the others. Just tonight he told me that he had gotten back from work and was about to get comf (comfortable, in case you didn’t realize); it just rolled off his tongue nice and easy.
So I guess not all abbreviations are annoying after all. But I do have some standards, at least; I do not (as of yet) say gotch.
But maybe I will…[cue menacing and evil laughter] Maybe. I. Will.
