FYI - yes - LOL!!

Back to the real world John - unfortunately its the way of the modern world. At some point, perhaps, there will be an abbreviated language for each new generation and each discipline. It's supposed to save time (and space) - publication space that is - and is perhaps an exclusive attempt of generating 'speak' to 'include or exclude'. 

No stones being thrown from my quarter.

Dean,

Thanks for your comment and I believe you're right.  It's today's world and it has passed me by!  I can barely operate a cell phone with physical buttons much less the smart phones with screens! 

I've been frustrated and disappointed several times that I was very interested in a topic but literally could not follow it because of several unexplained acronyms.  I suppose I should just learn to live with it by skipping the question or answer with TMA.

BTW, have you noticed that some people even make up their own acronyms for their topic, like the "invention" of an acronym will be their claim to fame.  LOL

No problem John and, yes, I have noticed it. 

I'm not sure that the world is passing you by. For me, it's more about 'what's relevant to me or not - and what stays in vogue or not'. All of a sudden - everyone last year was ending their emails with J. It took me a while to find pout what it meant and even then many were unsure. I notice that it's hardly used by my colleagues now. I never really used it!!

J

Darn, Dean!  You did that on purpose!  But I'm not going nuts trying to figure out what J means.  I'll wait until my 22-year-old daughter gets home.  She'll probably know.

And thanks, Dean, you've helped me a lot--"relevant to me" may seem a simple enough phrase that just came to you spontaneously but to me it's profound.  Going forward, if I don't know the acronym, understand the topic, or otherwise have issues "what the heck, it's not relevant to me anyway" will be my guiding principle.

Regards,

J (it's my initial :)

Hi J,

Your guiding principle seems sound enough to me!!

No problem at all - glad to assist where I can. To save hassling your daughter - here we go. By the way - I love the use of 'darn'; I'm transported to the US immediately. Like it!!

If you have Wingdings installed on your computer, then a smiley face will appear as a smiley face. Otherwise, it will be the letter "J": J

This is because the letter J represents a smiley face icon in the Wingdings font. Microsoft Outlook automatically converts the :) and :-) text emoticons into smiley face icons using the Wingdings font. 

It's a strange world we live in - hey!!

: ) 

Dean

Hello Dean,

Thanks for taking the time to clear that up.  Aha!, so that's why my Outlook mail converts :) to a smiley face.  Probably does the same in Word; haven't noticed. Speaking of time and my daughter and the modern world, I'm glad you did explain because it occurs to me I might not have gotten an answer from my "busy" daughter with her hectic texting schedule. LOL  When she comes in and walks by my desk I try to engage her in conversation.  All her responses are the same--"fine".  OMG If I were younger I'd try to create a complete language of acronyms and Wingdings (I'm in foreign languages).  LOL   It couldn't be a spoken language, though.  And it's probably already been done.  I've never had an original idea in my life.

Strange world?  More like an alien world.  Science fiction comes to mind. Today's tech world is such an extreme advancement over my era of the 60s and 70s that I feel like I've been transported to an alien planet.  I sometimes think of most of my work being produced on a small portable typewriter compared to the convenience and advantages of today's generation.  I remember how thrilled I was when I got my first electronic typewriter with "memory" and I could hit backspace and erase an entire line.  An entire line, Dean, how incredible is that, eh?

I've bored you enough so I should sign off.

Best wishes,

John 

Hi John,

It's getting more of a personal chat between you and I - and that is absolutely fine. I know that one or two of my friends on RG are watching it and enjoying it I think.

How ironic that you are in languages - hey. Your experience with your daughter seems familiar. I've three sons; my eldest is 17 and my youngest is 6. They are all whizzes on multiple devices - and see me as a real dinosaur (even though I don't think that I'm that bad at IT [if it's still called that]). If I ask advice, it's 'whatever' and they just do it for me without the resolve to tell me how to. Thankfully, at least 'whatever' is a word - rather than an emoticon instead. 

My era is more 70s and 80s - especially UK-based punk, mod, new romanticism, new wave etc era (although love the Ramones, Talking Heads etc as well) - but much of the tech stuff is still alien to me as well. I remember my first file-save on a C: 'floppy-disk'; I thought that I has mastered the IT world - and nothing could get any more complex than that!!

Not boring at all - enjoying it. To end on a positive note. My wife (Katie), up until 10-years ago, was a real technophobe. She thought that it was all pointless. Today, she's more clued up than my kids!! She has every gadget known to man - and she knows how to use them!!

Greetings Dean,

If no one wants to join the conversation they don't know what they're missing.  We're having fun chatting without all the mental fatigue of the weighty topics and without trying to decipher those gosh darn TMAs, dag nabbit.  I think the latter is a corruption of "dog nab it" although I don't see how that became an interjection.

Sorry, but I think my musical era of 60s-70s was the best.  After all, we had the British Invasion and the Beatles should go down in history as the best band of all time.  But I slip into the 80s a bit, too, with a fondness for Dire Straits.  Mark's guitar work is incredible and "Ride Across the River" is a 5-star song.

Wives!  Yep, mine, too.  She's a tech junkie like our daughter.  I sometimes watch the two of them when we're watching a "family" movie, which means I'm watching the movie and they're not.  They both have their heads down staring at those confounded contraptions, their thumbs a blur of tapping.  For kicks I'll occasionally say something like, "Did you hear about Cuba sinking into the ocean?"  Their typical response, "Uh huh." 

Best to you and your family,

John