bloodyrosemccoy | Obnoxious But Telling

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You know those highly irritating AT&T ads about the texting girl who talks in abbreviations and her exasperated mother? I just found something actually interesting in the latest one.

Text Girl and her Hilariously Hip texting grandmother are playing Scrabble with the exasperated Mom, and Text Girl writes in “ROTFL.” Her mother starts to read the letters aloud, then explodes*: “R-O-T-F-L—‘roffle’ isn’t English!”

Okay, maybe not, but I thought it was interesting that she pronounced it “roffle,” even with the “T” in there. (And of course the kid would probably have gone with “ROFL.” The “T” is Old School.) She said it very naturally, too, once she realized what the not-word was.

Yes, I know it’s a commercial, but it still says something about how Netspeak is sneaking into our conversations.

*She doesn’t actually explode. That would have been cooler.