Keep it Short!

Keep It Short, the fast-food society America is in a hurry!

We are so pressed for time we don’t want to get out of our car to eat we hit the drive through, hoping we don’t have to be in the line too long. So, grab the napkins and make sure a straw is included and get rolling. This fast-food mentality has encroached on our language as well.

We have so corrupted the King’s English we don’t use long or polysyllabic words anymore. We use contractions like don’t for do not, won’t for will not, can’t for cannot. We eliminate a letter, stick in an apostrophe in there, and have eliminated and/or shortened an entire word. Genius or lazy, I’m (am not) sure which?

This fast-food approach to language has been around for decades and continues to evolve, for the most part negatively. For me it started when I joined the Navy reserve at age 16. I signed up and was assigned to NavSecGru 13-8, or (Naval Security Group 13-8.) The 13 stood for the 13’Th Naval district. I don’t remember what the 8 stood for. When I went on active duty, I shipped out of the Brooklyn Navy yard in New York. I boarded an MSTS ship, (Military Sea Transportation Service.) My orders read: assigned to Bremerhaven Germany FFA NAVSECGRUDET Todendorf Germany. FFA (for further assignment) NAVSECGRUDET (Naval Security Group Detachment.)

While stationed in Europe we received orders from CINCLANTFLT, (Commander in Chief Atlantic Fleet.) Later when I was stationed in Hawaii, we received orders from CINCPACFLT, (Commander in Chief Pacific fleet.)

SNAFU is an old favorite, originating in the military in the early 1940’s. It means ‘Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.”

When I joined the Portland police in 1961, I learned number-speak. 10-8 meant car in service. 10-7 car out of service. 10-10 coffee or potty break. 10-20 where can I meet you? And a call about a 12-34 concerned a mental case or crazy person. “I gotta 12-34 on East Alder Street, send the cover for this one, he’s nuts.”

While with the Portland Police Bureau, I too became a number. I was Officer #354. When I was promoted to Detective my new number was #626. My gun was a six shooter. I survived. The media uses shortened words, perhaps originally to save time in the visual media realm and to save space in the print media.

The media refers to our President as the POTUS, President of the United States. His wife, the first lady is FLOTUS, First Lady of the United States. The Supreme Court is SCOTUS, which my wife Theresa always tells me reminds her of the word Scrotum. These three abbreviations sound like horrible diseases. If so, why hasn’t the CDC, (Center for Disease Control) warned us about them?

Other abbreviations even strike fear in our hearts. If some men in suits knocked on your door, identifying themselves as from the FBI, or G-Men, would your heart be pounding and your mouth dry? If you received a letter from the IRS would you be fearful of opening it, dreading what it might contain? You know if it’s from the IRSU, it’s probably not going to be good news.

Jamming the first and last name of celebrities together to make one abbreviation also became trendy several years ago. The fastest woman runner in the world, Florence Joyner became Flojo. And when she ran, she was indeed “flo-arty” in motion. Jennifer Lopez became J-lo, until her and Ben Affleck became an item, then they became “Bennifer,” the very essence of keeping it short.

Since the world has been taken over by social media with platforms like, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Ello, we have been inundated with a new form of shorthand. Even more abbreviations; and those horrible emoji's which are intended to replace words or show our emotional response to a particular subject or thread have also become part of normal everyday communication on social media.

We can select smiley faces or frowning faces or a pile of brown poop or a green puke emoji's to convey how we feel about a particular topic. Dozens of emoji's have been created to express a mood without using a single word. Most folks use emoji's freely on social media, even inappropriately as when a pet or person dies, and they include a sad or crying face.

I think emoji's are disgusting and I never use them. It all started with a smiley face, in my opinion  and went to hell from there. Then there are words with double meanings like meat. Of course, we eat meat, and we also get to the meat of things. The word thread used to be something my mother used to sew up holes in my jeans and to darn my socks with. Now, thread is the word used to string together a group of responses to someone’s post on social media.

The new meanings of old words are hard to keep up with. Facebook and Twitter have taught us new shorthand-speak. If we want navigate the rocky shoals of social media, we must learn that BFF means best friend forever. LOL means laugh out loud, though at one time, I thought it meant lots of love. LMAO means laughing my ass off. A figure of speech of course, because no one actually laughs their ass off.

CUL means ‘see you later.’ STFU is used to tell someone off with emphasis. It means shut the fuck up. Why do we seem to be afraid to type out the actual word fuck? It is probably one of the most versatile words in the English language, a commonly used word with many meanings like Abso-fucking-lutely or Bumfuck, or cluster fuck or fuck buddy or fuck book, among others.

However as commonly used as it is, fuck must be an embarrassing word for some, so when we type it out, we often type f#*k with other combinations of symbols to replace the U and the C. We all know that f#*k is really fuck. Why are we embarrassed to write out the word? It is in the dictionary, though for many decades it wasn’t, so should we be embarrassed to use it? I think if you are an adult, you shouldn’t be embarrassed to use the word fuck.

Now, Motherfucker is a much nastier word which I personally never use. It began with Oedipus Rex who unknowingly married Jocasta who was his mother. He had four children with her which certainly makes him in a literal sense a mother fucker. In some parts of town, mother is only half a word, which needs that remaining word to make it a whole word. The aforementioned word, up above. LOL.

So, as I’m as busy as the rest of you and have other things to do now, I’ll keep it short.

It’s time for me to STFU! So CUL and stay J.

Don DuPay