Chances are, when talking to friends, family, or co-workers via text or IM (or, perhaps even in person), you've used abbreviations for common phrases like "LOL" (short for laughing out loud) and BRB (an acronym for be right back). Now, I asked you where OMG -- short for "Oh my God" originated, what would you say? Perhaps you may point to the internet chatrooms that became popular in the 1990s through services like America Online. If you were born in the 2000s, you might guess it started with texting or email. Actually, you'd have to go back further -- to the first half of the 20th century, that is. Indeed, "OMG" dates back to World War I. The first known use of OMG to abbreviate "oh my God" appears in a letter from Lord John Fisher to Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955: "I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis -- O.M.G. (Oh! My God!)...

I recently saw a graphic posted on Facebook with the following one-liner: "Sadly, the days of people using proper English are went." I found it cleverly drives home the point that many people have become far too lazy to check their IMs and text messages for punctuation and grammar before sending them off. We all have at least one friend or relative who does this, and maybe we're guilty of it ourselves at times. As a writer/editor/proofreader by trade, my writing is usually impeccable. If I happen to notice a misspelling on my part after the text was sent, I'm quick to write the word correctly with an asterisk next to it, letting the recipient know it was done accidentally. I realize that this is to be expected from someone who writes for a living, and that others may not be such sticklers for grammar and spelling when having casual conversations with friends and family. But I just can't help it when people are too sloppy, peppering the conversation w...

We all know what "LOL" means. The ubiquitous acronym for "laughing out loud," it's likely you use it at least once a week while conversing online with friends, relatives or coworkers. But how often have you used the acronym while   really  laughing out loud?  It's a safe bet that you've done this only a couple of times, if ever. What's more,  I wouldn't be surprised if some of us have typed and sent people an LOL with a straight face. In truth, it might be better to put LIS -- laughing inside -- rather than LOL, because the former is what we actually do. Or, how about ILT, which could stand for I like that. LOL is what we employ to indicate that something the other person tells us is amusing in some way. You may actually let out a small chuckle, but really: How often do you hear people laughing aloud, let alone when chatting with someone online? Maybe we just haven't come up with the right acronym that captures feeling amused. A Faceb...