I work hard at not being a fogey. It’s easy at my age to fall into that trap. You know what I’m talking about: Constantly yammering about the good old days, when kids who got sassy got paddled by their teachers and there were no mamby-pamby “social workers” (big air quotes) to coddle us. When public school kids started the day with the pledge (which still happens, BTW) and a prayer (which never happened, BTW), when kids knew the meaning of respect and gas was 40 cents a gallon and we had a white president.
More and more people my age are on the town council of Fogeyville and they’ve stopped even trying to step down. In fact, they keep running for re-election.
Not me. I’m going to go into assisted living (or at least The Villages) kicking with sparkly high heeled shoes and screaming catch phrases from current TV shows. God help me, I will not grow old with bitterness and dignity. I will not.
But that’s not why I’ve gathered you here today. I got stuck recently and I want to admit it up front. I take some pride in being able to figure out hashtag initials. You know, the acronyms that are so popular with young people these d — sorry, I mean with my peeps.
I just have to stare at it a while, look at the context and I can often figure out what it means. Like #FML (no thank you, I’ll pass), #LOL, #ROFL, #FOFL and their fouler sister #CTFU. Maybe it’s because I read a lot, or maybe because I took both Latin and Greek, but I can look at a group of letters and often figure out what they mean. Also my mind is in the gutter, which helps.
Helpful people are always proffering #HTH. From the sympathetic you’ll get #WABT, and from the clueless we get #IDK. From your grandma you’ll hear #LMFAO. JK! Your grandma wouldn’t say ass. #LMFBO, maybe.
When my mother-in-l — sorry — my MIL asked me how we’re supposed to figure out what all these mean, I gave her two pieces of advice: One, Google it. Include the hashtag and you’ll get an Urban Dictionary entry on it, for sure. Be careful; some sites will try to trick you into thinking these are innocent phrases that can be used on sympathy cards and such. And two, assume that it’s nasty. If there’s an F anywhere in it, it’s most likely that F word.
But recently on Facebook I came across a stumper: #SMH.
It was attached to a post about something or other that had happened somewhere. I stared at the post itself a while, looked for contextual clues, went to the link referred to, watched the video, read the other comments. Still couldn’t figure it out.
What was it?
Scary man hands?
Suck my hump?
So many horrors?
What about:
Shit, man, huh
Sell more homes
Some moms hurry
Scrub my hut (or the preferred #SMHP – scrub my hut please)
Someone’s mom’s hurling
So many handprints!
Several monetary hurdles
Slaps mouth hard
So much hydrogen (use with #SLO: so little oxygen)
So, hey! Mamacita!
I don’t give up easily, as you can see. Eventually I cried Uncle and Googled it:
SHAKING MY HEAD? WHAT?? OK, that does kind of make sense.
I read some comments below the hashtag entry and one chick chastised another poster who called it an acronym. “SMH is not an acronym. It’s just initials. Go look up what an acronym is.”
Young people today can #SI. The little #SNKs. Telling me what an acronym is and isn’t. #SMH
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Read more of Diane’s Just Humor Me columns here. Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter to get new blog post notifications. And if you like her blog, you’ll love her book, Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.
