Removing his spectacles, he blinked, rubbed the fatigue from his eyes and put the glasses back on. Taking a deep breath, he tried again.

Ten minutes later, Arya walked in the door, chewing gum in that classic way that teenagers do.
‘Arya, come here. Tell me what this means.’

Sauntering over, she peered at the screen: Cn U PTB? TIA.

“It means, ‘Can you please text back? Thanks in advance.’

His eyes widened. ‘WHAT? Why can’t he say that then instead of this gibberish?’

Less is more, dad. Didn’t you know?’

‘Certainly takes me moreΒ time to figure this out.’

***

Welcome to The Moving Quill!

For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I’ve taken up the theme of

An Oxymoron rendered inΒ micro-fiction.

Each day’s titleΒ will have one half of the oxymoron while the second half will be revealed towards the end of the post.

Follow me as I unravel each tale in exactly 100 words.

Follow me on FacebookΒ or Twitter to keep track of my updates

***

42 thoughts on “Less – #FlashFiction #AtoZChallenge

  1. True. Less is definitely more in the sms world of the young..Hehe. Always sounds like greek to me.I do wish people would write proper English though considering the advances made in the swipe technology πŸ™‚

  2. Perfect idea for today! And the last line is so apt!

    I remember those days when when I was a newbie to texting lingo. I actually read an article on short forms used in texting before sending my first message via WhatsApp πŸ˜› But thanks to ‘free’ messaging on almost every platform, I don’t have to send gibberish looking messages anymore. In fact, the only short form I allow myself is tmrw. Yet, I can’t say the same for everyone else ?

  3. Ha ha ha. This was fun. Even I get irritated when is see ppl using shortcuts to such extent. Just fail to understand why do they keep corrupting the spellings? But alas, ignorance is bliss and that’s what I have learnt to do nowadays.

  4. Oh man! As if this less is more gibberish on what’s app wasn’t enough, it’s made its way to social media, blog comments, and blog posts too! I just don’t get it – and it’s so lazy and annoying!

  5. Loved the story. Did not know PTB though. I hate this lingo. Wrote a blog on this long back. The lingo made sense when sms were 144 characters long. I don’t understand the need of shortening words when there is no character limit.

  6. I hate the sms lingo. It pisses me off to no end. What irks me more is the ‘HBD’ I see on FB walls during someone’s birthday.

  7. Oh I am so lost with this lingo form. I am quite the same n keep asking peeps(much to their amusement) what it means!!!

  8. This made me laugh. That gibberish takes me more time to figure it out too. I’ve used the less is more in my post though it’s in a different context.

  9. Haha, didn’t know PTB was a thing. I get this feeling when my younger cousins text me. I mean how how hard is it to type “your” instead of “ua” ???

  10. Anyone with teenagers will surely relate to this. It annoys me when my girls use these short forms..I can only hope they remember to use the correct (full if I may say) language in formal use.

  11. This was a preview of future. ? I didn’t know what PTB meant. Thankfully I receive and send text messages only from my husband who is illiterate than me in this area. So it works out fine for me, now. Good one, Shailaja. ?

  12. I too was wondering what all that gibberish was! I detest it when people type the abbreviations ..I too am guilty of doing it, though, but mine can be understood. But such ones go way over my head!

  13. God! It would have taken ages for me to get that SMS lingo!! I abhor usage of ‘dis’, ‘dat’ ‘dere’ ‘dat’ and things like that, as well!!

  14. I wish for the simpler times when acronyms only meant medical or military stuff. The guy in the pic – his expression is epic.

Comments are closed.