⚠️ A cautionary tale: Marley Stevens, a student at the University of North Georgia, learned the hard way Grammarly can spell trouble. She used the grammar-checking tool for a paper and was flagged for AI use. That snowballed into a failed assignment, lost scholarship and academic probation. Ridiculous.
WTF? 10 acronyms that confuse Americans the most
A few years ago, a family member posted on Facebook that he had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. My mother replied with LOL. She thought that meant “lots of love,” not “laughing out loud.” She was so embarrassed.
OMG, here comes another text or post filled with abbreviations you have to pretend to know. You can try to LOL your way out of the convo.
Instead of saying WTF, check out this cheat sheet of the 10 most confusing acronyms — and some science behind why we use them. You’ll definitely want to save this one for L8R.
U R A1, BFF? ROFL, JK, SRSLY, B MY BFF!
Language learning platform Preply looked at 49 of the most commonly used abbreviations and discovered which ones Americans searched the most. Have any of these stumped you, too?
- SMH: Shaking my head
- POV: Point of view
- TBH: To be honest
- ASL: Age, sex, location (or “as hell” with the younger crowd)
- BBL: Brazilian butt lift or be back later
- HMU: Hit me up
- NSFW: Not safe for work
- LMAO: Laughing my @ss off
- OFC: Of course
- TTYL: Talk to you later
SMH racked up more than 100,000 monthly searches over the last two years. POV confused 70,000 fine folks a month.
Btw, here’s a breakdown of that heading above:
- U R: You are
- A1: Top quality or excellent
- BFF: Best friends forever
- ROFL: Rolling on the floor laughing
- JK: Just kidding
- SRSLY: Seriously
- B MY BFF: Be my best friend forever
Sure, abbreviations help us communicate much faster. They’ve also helped create new words and phrases, like FOMO (fear of missing out) and YOLO (you only live once).
Is it making us dumber?
Some say acronyms, abbreviations and even emojis have led to a decline in spelling and grammar skills. Eh, if you want to blame anything for that, it’s autocorrect.
That's embarrassing! New tools to keep you from making silly grammar mistakes
Nobody’s perfect, and mistakes happen despite all the time we spend typing emails, text messages, posting on social media and writing in word processors. That isn’t to say you shouldn’t work on improving your writing habits.
How to ditch Office for Docs and Excel for Sheets
Microsoft Office has been around for a long time, and understandably, people love the familiarity with its applications. But it is expensive.
As more businesses and educational institutes switch to Google programs such as Docs and Sheets, it can’t hurt to check them out. And you can save money by switching.
Using AI against us: Hackers can weaponize chatbots to write phishing campaigns
Artificial intelligence has received a lot of attention over the last few weeks. Several platforms have become viral hits for using AI to create art with a one-word prompt or transforming selfies into magical portraits.
Stop paying for software! 7 free versions of popular programs everyone uses
Some of the best software for your professional life comes with a heavy price tag. Luckily, there are a ton of great resources that carry you through heavy tasks. For example, you can visit free editing websites to check your writing for grammar issues. Tap or click here for five free sites that keep your writing professional and typo-free.
5 sites for checking your grammar
There is nothing worse than sending off a business email or posting a blog entry, only to realize later that you have typos or poor grammar. How did that happen? After all, you use Microsoft Word, which has a built-in spell-checking feature. Unfortunately, this type of spell checker is basic, nothing fancy.
Instantly check your spelling and grammar as you type with this web tool
Imagine typing a response email to a potential employer to set up an interview. You can tell they’re interested, but one misspelled word can ruin your chances. How do you ensure proper spelling?
Or what about your next Facebook post? Blatant errors all of your friends can see are embarrassing. But using a word processor to check everything you write before you post is too time-consuming. Tap or click here for the best ad-free alternative to Facebook.