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5 secret texting codes used by teens (and 5 more they should adopt)

Commentary: It seems that teens have even given POS a different meaning from the one you might know. How far can this new language go?

Chris Matyszczyk
3 min read

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.


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FWIW, watch out.

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Having a teen around the house is, I understand, a certain type of torture.

Not as bad as waterboarding, but not as good as scratching an itch and letting the pain give way to relief.

It seems that many teens don't enjoy living with their parents either. They have to occasionally follow rules and, tragically, they have to tiptoe around their texting.

As CBS New York reports, some parents are beginning to learn that certain abbreviations used by teens in texts don't mean quite what you might think.

I therefore present five of these and, in the interest of remaining fair and balanced, I offer five more that I believe teens should immediately adopt.

First, the ones that appear to be already out there.

    1. GYPO. This, apparently means Get Your Pants Off. I believe this to be a punchy prelude to a sexting encounter.

    2. GNOC. Here the sender is encouraging the sendee to Get Naked On Camera. Because, presumably, this is the path to stardom.

    3. CU46. This one's easy. See You For Sex. It's deeply unromantic, however.

    4. PIR. These three letters encourage the person at the other end of the text to be careful as the sender's parents are in the room.

    5. POS. The first two letters of this, to many people's eyes, stand for Piece Of... No more. It now means Parent Over Shoulder.

    Kids, I'm not impressed. This is all a touch literal and based around sex and being caught talking about sex.

    But that last one gave me an idea. You need a double bluff. Take a known acronym and give it a completely different meaning. That way, your parents will be completely flummoxed. Perhaps forever. Now your code will be genuinely secret. That's the way codes work.

    Here are some ideas on how to warn your friends that your parents are sniffing around.

    1. FWIW. It's usually known as For What It's Worth. But now, let it be Free Words Impossible, Word. No parent would get that in a century.

    2. IMHO. Of course everyone knows this as In My Humble Opinion, but why don't we make it mean I'm Hearing Olds? Yes, referring to your parents as "olds" is an old English thing. This way, your parents won't guess in a million years what you mean and that you think they're old.

    3. WTF. Yes, it currently starts What The... Yes, it could be Want To... But please, no. Let it stand for Winds Turning Frigid. This way, your friends will know that the texting space has become unsafe.4. ROTFL. Look, you have to be creative with these things. Literal translations just don't cut it anymore. So this one should be Right Over There, Father Lurks. So much more mellifluous than POS.

    5. LOL. Everyone knows what this means. Everyone. Laugh Out Loud. But what if you and your fellow teens made it into Lizards On Lookout?

    I know there's one drawback with this system. It's that you can never use these abbreviations for what they currently mean. But that's called being cool, kids.

    In my humble opinion, that is.