L8R vs. L8ER

[acobra]

Ok, havent' posted here in a long time but i know this a good community for this kind of discussion, so here goes:

Me and my friend have be having an argument for many years about this, and i want to know what other opinions are about it.

I'm not even gonna tell you who believes what but here are the two arguments:

L8ER - should = L EIGHT ER, because there is no E pronouced at the end of EIGHT.

L8R - should = L ATE R so it spells out to be right, plus it's shorter and the whole point of a chat short cut is to type the least amount possible and still get your point across.

What do you think!??!

[Jammrock]

ate and eight sound the same phonetically and the 'e' in later is pretty much silent. Thus l8r would sound the same as l8er when spoken in the American English dialect, and thereby giving it the net sp34k acronym "l8r".

Jammrock

[Greebe]

l8r d00dz

[Wombat]

I think that unless you're sending an SMS, where letter count matters, then you look stupid using either one.

[acobra]

True, i guess you could just type later - but you could also type laugh out loud... but no one does...

I realize it's saving a lot more keystrokes to type LOL vs. Laugh out Loud, but it still saves 2 w/ L8R and 1 with L8ER....

[Umfriend]

l8r of course, l8er is ridicoulous. You don't need the "e", it comes either cause it is not easy to say "t"+"r" with at least a bit of an "e" in there anyway (as long as you end at "r", so not "tractor". Otherwise, "er" is how you pronounce the letter "r" anyway.

[Kruzin]

The poll neds an option for "Niether, 'leet speek' is for twits".

[Umfriend]

"Niether"?

Edit: uhm, that was intended, was not it?
edit 2: Sh1t, now I'm a fool either way

[Lizzard[MPE]]

Originally posted by Wombat
I think that unless you're sending an SMS, where letter count matters, then you look stupid using either one.

[Wombat]

Originally posted by acobra
True, i guess you could just type later - but you could also type laugh out loud... but no one does...

I realize it's saving a lot more keystrokes to type LOL vs. Laugh out Loud, but it still saves 2 w/ L8R and 1 with L8ER....

The 8 is more of a reach, and is slower for most touch typers than "later."

[cjolley]

Shouldn't the second choice be L83R

Or even "183R"?

Chuck

[Liquid Snake]

Yeah I gotta agree with Wombat. Typing l8r takes me more time than typing later. And l8r does look quite stupid.

[agallag]

Another vote for the correct spelling. Anyone who touch types would probably be quicker without hitting the number row.

Even with SMS, you have to switch from letter to number mode to type L8R (unless you're using a blackberry or something with a full keyboard), so it's just easier to type it correctly.

[Dr Mordrid]

Even arguing about this sounds a bit anal to me

Dr. Mordrid

[Fat Tone]

I think the real argument here is do we use sms shorthand or type in full?

My last phone (NEC E808) had a full qwerty keyboard so it was easiest to type proper english, apart from common shortcuts like 'gonna' and 'prolly'. I always seemed to run up against the length-limit with that phone!

My new phone (LG U8110) has T9 predictive text input, so full english is the only real option, and it is quick.


l8rs d00dz