Librarian in Black Blog – Sarah Houghton

A study conducted by University of Toronto professor Sali Tagliamonte revealed that IM lingo (short-formed words) only comprise 2.4% of teenagers’ IM communications.  Over a two year span, Tagliamote studied all the IM chats of 71 different teenagers (over a million words in total).  These results can do two things:

1. Reassure any librarians delving into IM for the first time that the lingo will not make up the bulk of your conversations with teens.
2. Show that teens still know how to spell real words; they just choose to use the shorter ones to save time and effort.

LOL (laugh[ing] out loud) was the most prevalent abbreviation used (195 per 100,000 words) with OMG (oh my god) coming second at 107 per 100,000 words.  For more on the study, see the article from the Toronto Star and this short story from the U of T Magazine.

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