I remember, years ago, asking my mom to borrow her new Motorola RAZR flip phone and reading an incoming text message, perhaps one from my dad that read something like, “hi, finishing @ work. b home soon.” The fun (and frustration) in replying was in saying as much as I could possibly fit into 160 characters. It felt like a puzzle, or like writing in code: “Ok” was “66655”; “hi” was “44–[pause]–444”; “finishing” was “33344466444777744–[pause]–444664.”
Messages read like wartime wires. Punctuation, buried within the “1” key, was rare; abbreviations were common: “K,” “LOL,” “BRB.” Some became so common that we say them in spoken conversation. Certainly, phones’ numeric keypads created a new branch of the English language. Yet “K” underwent a metamorphosis that no other piece of this dialect did. No more an innocent abbreviation, it absorbed a feeling, became an emotional response. “K” carries with it all the cockiness and displeasure of the sender. The smartphone’s QWERTY keyboard evolved the texting dialect to what it is today. With a full keyboard, and minus the character limit, the need for drastic abbreviations disappeared, and texting became a primary form of human communication. A few remnants of the early years circulate commonly: “omg,” “lol,” “wtf,” as well as new ones like “tbt.” Why, then, did “K” change so drastically while others didn’t? Think of the last text message you received. Whether it said, “Sounds great! See you there” or “Goodnight honey, love you,” you likely heard the sender’s voice reading the words to you. We have learned to manipulate the letters, spacing, punctuation and grammar of messages to create a tone—our tone—to mimic our voice. Imagine a parent asks their child to buy groceries. “No problem!” carries joy and eagerness. “Ok” conveys the same affirmation with much less enthusiasm. “K” not only lacks enthusiasm, but also carries irritation. Years ago, that answer would have meant nothing more than “Ok, I will.” Today, it means, “I will, but I am not at all happy about it.” It means, “Why couldn’t you ask someone else to do it?” It means, “I want you to know that I am angry that I have to do this.” It is a negative response with no lexical indication of being negative. There are other examples: “omg” often seems to have shed its unabbreviated form and become an independent word, like “wow.” “Lol” is a similar case, having become less of a laugh and more of a cushion to soften a message, to show cheerfulness if not actual humor. “K” is the only piece of the texting dialect that has transformed into nearly the opposite of its original definition. It did not change for everyone. My dad still uses “K,” though he has an iPhone. He was surprised when he first heard that its meaning had changed so drastically. Every time he uses it, it catches me for a moment before I remember that he doesn’t mean it in a cocky way, or in any way at all—he simply uses it as a shortcut, a leftover from learning the language of abbreviation.
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