Monday, March 29, 2010

The Secret Langugae of Deeply Disturbed People

I've been called out by a number of friend-readers on my decidedly un-Yelena-like mushiness towards Ye Olde Partner of Devotion in some of these postings. Sadly, I remain undeterred. A caveat is that I tend not to publicize our knock-down, drag-out, hair-pulling, bed-wetting fights because, well, one must have some standards (I also do not wax, at length, about the crazy, trapeze-inclusive, agar agar, shot-in-3D, monkey sex because I do not wish for you to become consumed with jealousy), but some of our shtick I think, biasedly so, is universally awesome and that it would be cruel not to share.

Take for example a curious trend in our online messaging. Aside from Devoted Partner's inability to use an away message for times when he does not wish communication (like during meetings, WebX presentations, and conference calls), we spend some quality time messaging back and forth a couple times a day. If you have ever received and instant or text message from me, you will notice that I have failed to grasp the simplicity of the medium and generally insist on typing in full sentences using capitalization and punctuation. This allows the person with whom I am communicating to feel completely justified in calling me out when I err and mistype.

Devoted partner and I started getting into Cute Overload speak, mostly in response to the puppy pictures we send each other. Example: Him - Sends cute puppy pic; Me - Types 'I has a wants.' But then it just got out of hand. Example: I has make peas for dinner noms. Now I can go several exchanges without using proper verb endings.

But after deciding that we would strive for significant reduction in fatness, we changed our messaging habits. Devoted partner, I think, started it by sending me a comic that included the important message: 'chickenchickenchicken.' Now we were sending one another messages through the cryptographic wonder that is chicken. Example: 'chickenchickenmustdolaundrychickenchicken.'

Are you still with me?

This led to merely removing spaces from many communiques. Example (from today, prompting this post): 'dustbunnystairs' ... 'cornersofbunnyhiding' ... 'livingroomrugofsadcrumbs.' Somehow this makes whatever has been written somehow funnier.

Now I'm not sure what to make of all this. If you've spent any time with us, you know we're not a couple that easily transitions to pet names and googoogaga talk, but this typing style clearly smacks of the same problem. I do know that I find what we type much funnier this way and iwillkillyouwithsharppointysticks seem somehow less serious. My only concern is that I think I now use 'noms' in everyday parlance, and that can't bode well for the preservation of the English language.

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