New words center student language
By Luara Luettger
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

I have a running joke with myself. It involves computer lingo and words that don’t exist. Really, it’s just my own language that I have invented for informal conversations. I started doing so because many people started changing the way things are written, in turn changing the English language. Personally, I’m more of a conventional speaker/writer. I love grammar and all its rules, even though I do mess up sometimes.

I believe that once a person has a firm grasp on the English language, then this person can then alter the language to fit his/her personality, if only for informal conversations. This is how I came up with Lauraisms.

For people who know me really well, I don’t even have to explain my Lauraisms. The most obscure words (or gestures because I don’t always use my words) are understood easily. It’s almost like a little culture I have begun to create.

My favorite endings to words are those most commonly used by college-age students. These primaily include the suffixes –ing, –ness and -ish, but I’ve been known to use others or just come up with my own.

I also like to turn nouns into verbs. I do this mostly by adding an –ing, but just adding the appropriate endings in any tense works. Some of the words I’ve developed are really magical. One that is commonly used by the staff here is “stylusing,” which means to fulfill your duties working for or at The Stylus. I won’t take credit for that one though — I’m not sure who thought of it first.

The other night I came up with another word of which I’m rather proud — loling. It means just hanging out, having fun, doing whatever. It comes from the abbreviation “lol,” meaning laugh out loud or some variation.

Normally, I don’t ever use that abbreviation. I’m more of a “haha” or “hehe” girl, so I don’t really know how I came up with this word, but that’s the beauty of it — they just come to me.

Speaking of abbreviations, I’ll admit I steal some AIM abbreviations to say aloud. I know that’s not exactly original, but I started doing it to annoy my roommates, and it just kind of stuck. My personal favorites include “btw,” “nbd,” “brb” and “jk.” (They stand for “by the way,” “no big deal,” “be right back” and “just kidding.”)

I also tend to use these abbreviations because I get such a kick out of them with my mom. It’s hard enough for my parents to understand how to work a computer nevermind immerse them in the culture surrounding it. One of my favorite moments of all time involve my mom attempting to communicate verbally with computer lingo:

“OK, Laura, here’s your father. I’ll ttfn [ta-ta for now],” says Mom.

“Haha, OK, bye mom,” I say.

“BF forever and life or something,” says Mom. “Did I get it right?!”

“Haha, no mom, just stop trying,” I say.

Ten minutes later, when I’m speaking with my father, my mom picks up the other phone.

“BBFLL!” she screams.

“…That’s still not right,” I say, laughing hysterically.

End episode of life of Laura.

It’s moments like those that encourage me to continue making up words and using abbreviations.

Lauraisms also include a range of animal-like noises, including “meow,” which is how I show affection, “rarr,” which is how I show frustration, and “baby bird hungay,” which means I would like some food. Normally, my roommates respond with other weird animal noises from their own languages and we continue to have a conversation.

Having weird words and languages like this seems to be a part of our generation though, so I don’t really think I’m that weird. I can carry on a conversation with almost anyone my age in solely abbreviations, and I’m not quite sure what that says about our culture.

I’m not too concerned though, because I’m pretty sure one day, Lauraisms will take over at least the United States, if not the world. So start practicing.

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