textspeak
LOL and BRB
Textspeak is the abbreviated, informal writing style that emerged from SMS messaging and spread to other digital communication.
It favors short forms, acronyms, and phonetic spellings: u for you, 2nite for tonight, lol for laughing out loud.
The style developed when phone keypads made typing tedious and character limits costly.
Though smartphones removed those constraints, textspeak persists in casual contexts: ty for the info, omw.
Internet amusement abbreviation
Shortened word form
- shorthandAbbreviated writing system
- slangInformal in-group vocabulary
- lingoGroup-specific vocabulary
- informalRelaxed, not official
casual · colloquial · vernacular · nonstandard · ungrammatical · phonetic · truncated · compressed
LOL
Internet amusement abbreviation
abbreviation
Shortened word form
informal · casual · colloquial · vernacular · nonstandard · ungrammatical · phonetic · truncated · compressed · streamlined
emoji
Digital pictograph for messaging
ampersand · ellipsis · asterisk · kaomoji · sticker · GIF · meme · reaction · punctuation
SMS
Mobile text protocol
- chatInformal verbal exchange
- messagingSending written digital communications
- WhatsAppMobile messaging platform
iMessage · Discord · Snapchat · Twitter · DM · inbox · thread · notification · groupchat · Telegram
- slangslang, jargon, lingo, argot, cant
- speech registersformal, informal, casual, colloquial, vernacular
- speech stylescolloquial, vernacular, high style, street talk, baby talk
textspeakformal writing
Polished, structured text
academic writing · proper English · professional writing · business English · Queen's English
speak, text, speech, speaker, spoken, textbook, speaking, texture, texts