Or, since you’re on your phone anyway, type “TYTY” into the browser and get the answer in 4.5 seconds.
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Or you could think about it for 0.5 seconds and come up with the correct answer.
It would never occur to me to read TYTY as a word. Especially in all caps.
When you do someone a favour, it seems logical that TY means “thank you”. Also, taitai is a word. It’s used in Singapore English to describe a certain type of matronly lady. Usually in her 40s or 50s, married, does not work, wearing expensive designer clothes, lots of jewellery, often brash and uncouth. http://goodyfeed.com/5-signs-that-youre-now-a-tai-tai/
Do people still say ROTFL? And I don’t think I’ve seen HHCC since 1990.
IMHO, I hate those acronyms…FWIW. YMMV.
Bill’s “phone browser” solution works for current technology, but cartoon characters (and/or their creators) are sometimes stuck with “old school” methodology: in this case, a “dumb phone” that can send text messages, but does not have “app” smarts.
If Papa Baldo is referring to “ur money,” he’s probably not all that old school.
Or else, I guess, he is old school and really can’t spell.
P.S. I detest virtually all of those “cool” Internet acronyms, but even if the one shown in this strip is “real”, it is a particularly stupid concoction. The word “thanks” conveys exactly the same meaning, and requires exactly the same number of taps.
Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce?
Oddly enough, in my family – my sisters and I text quite a lot, and we tend to write full sentences (me in particular, since I swipe rather than tap). My dad texts rarely but tends to write full sentences (which are as full of typos as anything he types – big fingers (literally)). And my mom texts using the “standard” text shortcuts – “ur” for your would be right up her alley. Drives me nuts (and I have had to look stuff up, though it’s _usually_ phonetic). Those shortcuts were lifesavers on dumbphones with T9 “keyboards” with multiple letters per number key, but they’re slower to type and to read than full words on a full keyboard.
I do use a few acronyms – YMMV, IIRC, rarely IMHO. And I _don’t_ use emojis (aside from an occasional smiley – and even there I’m more likely to use the emoticon). I can read most of the acronyms (and I’d read TY or ty as thank you, but the double would probably send me to Google), but I don’t use them – don’t think to, mostly.
What’s HHCC? I looked it up and found nothing – one HCC, holy computer cr*p, but that’s the closest I could get.
The non-duplicated ‘ty’ is really very common rn.
Bill’s YWYW at first glance struck me as a version of the Tetragrammaton!
I would bet (I didn’t look it up) that Singaporean “taitai” comes from Chinese, where it means “senior wife”.
I love the irony that in “simplifying” communication, you are actually making it less communicative, which I suppose is the joke of the instant comic… Do I have to give props to Baldo? [grumble]…
Anyway, xkcd informs me that the “h” in IMHO has apparently morphed from “humble” to “honest”; makes me wonder how many other abbreviations have morphed and may now even have a completely different meaning, and no one has noticed? LOL — Lower On Life? BRB — Bye! Really: Bye! OMG — Ordinary Most Gray
And why do we never seem to adapt already extant uses and instead invent new ones? British English uses “ta” for “thanks”, and that’s exactly two characters — no need to invent “ty”!
It’s now a standard joke (or humorous true observation) that there are people who think LOL means “lots of love” and will use it where that would be appropriate but laughing would not — such as condolence notes.
(I also recall hearing it as “Little old lady” — but that may have been in a list of medical slang acronyms.)
We had an older friend of the family who was learning to use the computer and do online stuff some years back. She was trying out online bridge playing. She complained that she liked the game, but people would get rude in the chat. We asked her to explain. She said things would be going fine then someone would respond to a remark she made by calling her a little old lady (LOL). We had to explain.
@carlfink. Yes, the Singaporean taitai is derived from the Cantonese word. Singlish is English incorporating words (or derivatives) from the non-English languages of the population (various versions of Chinese, Malay, Tamil) into the structure of English (more or less). It is not a creole, as it is (largely) intelligible to a speaker of other English dialects. However, when the conversation goes full Singlish I do find it a challenge at times. The government does not approve of Singlish and teaches a more international English. Most locals would use that to speak to non-Singaporeans.
But doesn’t ‘ta’ also mean goodbye? At least, that’s how it’s used in literature.
Mark in Boston, I can’t find what HHCC means nor have I ever seen it before.
FWIW, in French typography, it used to be that when an abbreviation was doubled, it meant it was in the plural, so HHCC=HCs ?
Yeah, that’s not how we do things, here in the EEUU. 😉
If I were going to guess at HHCC from the content of Mark in Boston’s comment, I’d say it might have been for ha ha chuckle chuckle? Before ROTFL and LOL locked up the mirth abbreviation signifier market.
“Ta” as a shortened form of “ta-ta” gets used in the States, where they seem to be ignorant of the “thanks” meaning, which very most likely comes from the Danish Viking invaders; some form of “tak” is used in most of the Scandinavian languages (and in that form you can see how we got “thank” from a different round-about way). Where “ta-ta” for “bye” comes from I don’t know.
“Ta” for “thanks” is common in the UK, Ireland, Australia (I know from personal experience), and I’d assume New Zealand and South Africa as well.
HHCC = Ha Ha, clap clap. In other words, laughing and applauding at the joke. Or it could be the sarcastic ha ha, clap clap. This was back when we had 1200-baud modems.
“Ta-ta” is baby talk for “goodbye” and has been since I was a baby, which was a long time ago. I never knew the etymology.
Did you know that abbreviations, especially misspelled abbreviations, were the thing among the youngsters in Boston in the 1830’s? RTBS for “remains to be seen”, KG for “no go”, and of course OK for “oll korrect”, seen in print in 1839 and since then spread all around the world.
“But doesn’t ‘ta’ also mean goodbye?”
Tara (pron: tah-RAH) is used for goodbye in the UK, but ta on it’s own is ‘thanks’. I’ve never heard it used as goodbye…unless you’re thanking someone as you leave, I guess.
Charles: Righty-ho then chaps, I’m off.
Piers: Tara, Chaz. By the way, I mended the boot of your motor like you asked.
Charles: Oh, ta! (door slam)
Probably. I always took it as short for ‘tata’ so I probably didn’t even consider other definitions.
JJ Mcgaffey – I have small fingers and type wrong constantly. I did not have this problem with either Palm Centro or Blackberry, both of which have smaller keys – but actual keys not “on the screen keys”.
Since better than 99% of my texts are to Robert and either involve where I am in a store, where I will meet him in same, dinner is ready, I am taking the garbage out, I am back from taking the garbage out, I am at the garage in Queens on way to client or I am at the garage in Queens on way home from client, he told me not to worry. He will figure out what I wrote.
First time after he said this we were in Costco and he texted to find out where I was in the store. I texted him back – very poorly – that I was on the electronics side of the registers (as opposed to the food side on the other end of the registers). I then watched him as he wandered all over the store looking me because I have no idea what actually was written and sent to him.
For anyone who didn’t pick up on Mitch4’s impromptu joke, the abbreviation “E.E.U.U.” is the standard abbreviation used to distinguish the U.S.A. from all of the other “Estados Unidos” (“United States”), which is a common designation for many other Spanish-language country names (por ejemplo, los “Estados Unidos Mexicanos”).
The abbreviation of thank you as “ty” has been known to drive people named Ty half-crazy.
Generally in texts or IMs (back when I was a productive member of society) THX seemed more common.
Regarding EEUU, I wondered because in French, the United States are “Les Etats Unis” so EEUU would work and I thought that was Mitch4’s joke; I also tried to link it to the EU (European Union).
Kilby: apparently, the double plural abbreviation rule also works in Spanish: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=344886 thanks for the tip-off.
“Generally in texts or IMs (back when I was a productive member of society) THX seemed more common.”
I concur, except “thx” rather than “THX”. The first one means “thanks”, and the second one means “Your movie is too loud.”
This thread seems to be petering out. So TTFN…
SYLA
See you later, amigo? Anyone? Asshole?
MiB: IAWC
L8r, m8!
Oh, Alligator. Duh.
billytheskink, telling my nephew Tyler “Ty, Ty” never gets old.
To me, anyway.
BCNU
@ Olivier – Sorry, I didn’t make that clear enough. E.E.U.U. is used (for the U.S.A.) only in Spanish, not in English.
No, no: that was perfectly clear, but apart from Spanish, it could have worked in French (typography rules have changed since the XIXth century, and my handbook is dated 1855). In English, it would be UUSS.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Or you could think about it for 0.5 seconds and come up with the correct answer.
It would never occur to me to read TYTY as a word. Especially in all caps.
When you do someone a favour, it seems logical that TY means “thank you”. Also, taitai is a word. It’s used in Singapore English to describe a certain type of matronly lady. Usually in her 40s or 50s, married, does not work, wearing expensive designer clothes, lots of jewellery, often brash and uncouth. http://goodyfeed.com/5-signs-that-youre-now-a-tai-tai/
Do people still say ROTFL? And I don’t think I’ve seen HHCC since 1990.
IMHO, I hate those acronyms…FWIW. YMMV.
Bill’s “phone browser” solution works for current technology, but cartoon characters (and/or their creators) are sometimes stuck with “old school” methodology: in this case, a “dumb phone” that can send text messages, but does not have “app” smarts.
If Papa Baldo is referring to “ur money,” he’s probably not all that old school.
Or else, I guess, he is old school and really can’t spell.
P.S. I detest virtually all of those “cool” Internet acronyms, but even if the one shown in this strip is “real”, it is a particularly stupid concoction. The word “thanks” conveys exactly the same meaning, and requires exactly the same number of taps.
Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce?
Oddly enough, in my family – my sisters and I text quite a lot, and we tend to write full sentences (me in particular, since I swipe rather than tap). My dad texts rarely but tends to write full sentences (which are as full of typos as anything he types – big fingers (literally)). And my mom texts using the “standard” text shortcuts – “ur” for your would be right up her alley. Drives me nuts (and I have had to look stuff up, though it’s _usually_ phonetic). Those shortcuts were lifesavers on dumbphones with T9 “keyboards” with multiple letters per number key, but they’re slower to type and to read than full words on a full keyboard.
I do use a few acronyms – YMMV, IIRC, rarely IMHO. And I _don’t_ use emojis (aside from an occasional smiley – and even there I’m more likely to use the emoticon). I can read most of the acronyms (and I’d read TY or ty as thank you, but the double would probably send me to Google), but I don’t use them – don’t think to, mostly.
What’s HHCC? I looked it up and found nothing – one HCC, holy computer cr*p, but that’s the closest I could get.
The non-duplicated ‘ty’ is really very common rn.
Bill’s YWYW at first glance struck me as a version of the Tetragrammaton!
I would bet (I didn’t look it up) that Singaporean “taitai” comes from Chinese, where it means “senior wife”.
I love the irony that in “simplifying” communication, you are actually making it less communicative, which I suppose is the joke of the instant comic… Do I have to give props to Baldo? [grumble]…
Anyway, xkcd informs me that the “h” in IMHO has apparently morphed from “humble” to “honest”; makes me wonder how many other abbreviations have morphed and may now even have a completely different meaning, and no one has noticed? LOL — Lower On Life? BRB — Bye! Really: Bye! OMG — Ordinary Most Gray
And why do we never seem to adapt already extant uses and instead invent new ones? British English uses “ta” for “thanks”, and that’s exactly two characters — no need to invent “ty”!
It’s now a standard joke (or humorous true observation) that there are people who think LOL means “lots of love” and will use it where that would be appropriate but laughing would not — such as condolence notes.
(I also recall hearing it as “Little old lady” — but that may have been in a list of medical slang acronyms.)
We had an older friend of the family who was learning to use the computer and do online stuff some years back. She was trying out online bridge playing. She complained that she liked the game, but people would get rude in the chat. We asked her to explain. She said things would be going fine then someone would respond to a remark she made by calling her a little old lady (LOL). We had to explain.
@carlfink. Yes, the Singaporean taitai is derived from the Cantonese word. Singlish is English incorporating words (or derivatives) from the non-English languages of the population (various versions of Chinese, Malay, Tamil) into the structure of English (more or less). It is not a creole, as it is (largely) intelligible to a speaker of other English dialects. However, when the conversation goes full Singlish I do find it a challenge at times. The government does not approve of Singlish and teaches a more international English. Most locals would use that to speak to non-Singaporeans.
But doesn’t ‘ta’ also mean goodbye? At least, that’s how it’s used in literature.
Mark in Boston, I can’t find what HHCC means nor have I ever seen it before.
FWIW, in French typography, it used to be that when an abbreviation was doubled, it meant it was in the plural, so HHCC=HCs ?
Yeah, that’s not how we do things, here in the EEUU. 😉
If I were going to guess at HHCC from the content of Mark in Boston’s comment, I’d say it might have been for ha ha chuckle chuckle? Before ROTFL and LOL locked up the mirth abbreviation signifier market.
“Ta” as a shortened form of “ta-ta” gets used in the States, where they seem to be ignorant of the “thanks” meaning, which very most likely comes from the Danish Viking invaders; some form of “tak” is used in most of the Scandinavian languages (and in that form you can see how we got “thank” from a different round-about way). Where “ta-ta” for “bye” comes from I don’t know.
“Ta” for “thanks” is common in the UK, Ireland, Australia (I know from personal experience), and I’d assume New Zealand and South Africa as well.
HHCC = Ha Ha, clap clap. In other words, laughing and applauding at the joke. Or it could be the sarcastic ha ha, clap clap. This was back when we had 1200-baud modems.
“Ta-ta” is baby talk for “goodbye” and has been since I was a baby, which was a long time ago. I never knew the etymology.
Did you know that abbreviations, especially misspelled abbreviations, were the thing among the youngsters in Boston in the 1830’s? RTBS for “remains to be seen”, KG for “no go”, and of course OK for “oll korrect”, seen in print in 1839 and since then spread all around the world.
“But doesn’t ‘ta’ also mean goodbye?”
Tara (pron: tah-RAH) is used for goodbye in the UK, but ta on it’s own is ‘thanks’. I’ve never heard it used as goodbye…unless you’re thanking someone as you leave, I guess.
Charles: Righty-ho then chaps, I’m off.
Piers: Tara, Chaz. By the way, I mended the boot of your motor like you asked.
Charles: Oh, ta! (door slam)
Probably. I always took it as short for ‘tata’ so I probably didn’t even consider other definitions.
JJ Mcgaffey – I have small fingers and type wrong constantly. I did not have this problem with either Palm Centro or Blackberry, both of which have smaller keys – but actual keys not “on the screen keys”.
Since better than 99% of my texts are to Robert and either involve where I am in a store, where I will meet him in same, dinner is ready, I am taking the garbage out, I am back from taking the garbage out, I am at the garage in Queens on way to client or I am at the garage in Queens on way home from client, he told me not to worry. He will figure out what I wrote.
First time after he said this we were in Costco and he texted to find out where I was in the store. I texted him back – very poorly – that I was on the electronics side of the registers (as opposed to the food side on the other end of the registers). I then watched him as he wandered all over the store looking me because I have no idea what actually was written and sent to him.
For anyone who didn’t pick up on Mitch4’s impromptu joke, the abbreviation “E.E.U.U.” is the standard abbreviation used to distinguish the U.S.A. from all of the other “Estados Unidos” (“United States”), which is a common designation for many other Spanish-language country names (por ejemplo, los “Estados Unidos Mexicanos”).
The abbreviation of thank you as “ty” has been known to drive people named Ty half-crazy.
Generally in texts or IMs (back when I was a productive member of society) THX seemed more common.
Regarding EEUU, I wondered because in French, the United States are “Les Etats Unis” so EEUU would work and I thought that was Mitch4’s joke; I also tried to link it to the EU (European Union).
Kilby: apparently, the double plural abbreviation rule also works in Spanish: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=344886 thanks for the tip-off.
“Generally in texts or IMs (back when I was a productive member of society) THX seemed more common.”
I concur, except “thx” rather than “THX”. The first one means “thanks”, and the second one means “Your movie is too loud.”
This thread seems to be petering out. So TTFN…
SYLA
See you later, amigo? Anyone? Asshole?
MiB: IAWC
L8r, m8!
Oh, Alligator. Duh.
billytheskink, telling my nephew Tyler “Ty, Ty” never gets old.
To me, anyway.
BCNU
@ Olivier – Sorry, I didn’t make that clear enough. E.E.U.U. is used (for the U.S.A.) only in Spanish, not in English.
No, no: that was perfectly clear, but apart from Spanish, it could have worked in French (typography rules have changed since the XIXth century, and my handbook is dated 1855). In English, it would be UUSS.