I Prithee LOLeth! Shakespearean Internet Initialisms (Guest Post)

Internet Initialisms—LOL for “Laughing Out Loud” or BRB for “Be Right Back,” for example—have been around for a very long time. But Shakespeare has been around even longer. Bardfilm has come up with a number of Shakespearean Internet Initialisms. Use them to raise the tone of your texts, IMs, and Twitter conversations.

Shakespearean Internet Initialisms

SWL = [O, I am] Stabb’d with laughter (cf. modern LOL).

YHPP = Your humble patience pray (cf. modern BRB).

ITGASOMO = In the gross and scope of my opinion (cf. modern IMHO).

IJTO = I jest to Oberon (cf. modern JK).

OMUTB = Once more unto the breech (cf. modern BTW).

IYTUDWNL = If you tickle us, do we not laugh? (cf. modern ROTFL)

IFINTFYOL = I find it not fit for your o’er-looking (cf. modern NSFW).

HHHH = Howl, howl, howl, howl (cf. modern DYJHIW).

IHDASTS = I have drunk and seen the spider (cf. modern BTDT).

TORNAE = These our revels now are ended (cf. modern TTYL).

TITL = This is too long (cf. modern TL/DR).

Our thanks for this guest post to kj, the author of Bardfilm. Bardfilm is a blog that comments on films, plays, and other matters related to Shakespeare.

10 thoughts on “I Prithee LOLeth! Shakespearean Internet Initialisms (Guest Post)

  1. It's funny how the physical means of textual/cultural production (for shakespeare, the theatre and the printing press, while, for us, instant massaging services) shape content in subtle ways. I've often wondered what a performance of Shakespeare on twitter, given its spacial limitations, might look like. Anyone up for the challenge?

  2. Okay, perhaps the results are more strange than subtle, but there are positives to be taken away from such experiments. While the educational validity of text messages and twitter is certainly questionable, the interaction between Shakespeare and digital media is an interesting and potentially very rich cultural phenomenon.

    At the institutional level, of course, one needs to keep a level head and not mistake creative experimentation for academic analysis.

    As to sound, I'm not sure that it's typical to read texts or "tweets" out loud; such a performance could very well be a silent one.

  3. Duane, this has given me an idea for teaching Macbeth. Kids will have to come up with 20 questions, the answers to which will be quotations in text. Example:
    What is the condition called when you can't figure out whether an idea is good or bad? FIF-A-FIF.

    What do you think?
    Greg

  4. I like it, Greg. They come up with the questions? Or you give them the questions and they have to figure out the original quote from the answer?

    I've used games like this in the past (see "Title Letters" – http://blog.shakespearegeek.com/2010/09/game-title-letters.html) but I think the key to such a game is to have a reasonably limited domain. So maybe you provide a list of 20 clues ("Lady Macbeth on laundry day?"), 20 answering initialisms ("ODS!") and they have to figure out that it's Out, damned spot!

    That may be exactly what you meant, and I'm just clarifying 🙂

  5. I like it, Greg. They come up with the questions? Or you give them the questions and they have to figure out the original quote from the answer?

    I've used games like this in the past (see "Title Letters" – http://blog.shakespearegeek.com/2010/09/game-title-letters.html) but I think the key to such a game is to have a reasonably limited domain. So maybe you provide a list of 20 clues ("Lady Macbeth on laundry day?"), 20 answering initialisms ("ODS!") and they have to figure out that it's Out, damned spot!

    That may be exactly what you meant, and I'm just clarifying 🙂

  6. How about BWCYC as the internet text-speak version of blowing a raspberry: "Blow wind, crack your cheeks!"

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