[Ads-l] 39 - thank you

[Barretts Mail]

Yesterday, the The Huffington Post had an article (http://huff.to/2hqNme7 <http://huff.to/2hqNme7>) about teen text abbreviations (same article as in the e-mail on XYZ I just sent to the list).

One of the abbreviations is “39” from Japanese “san” (three) + “kyuu” (nine), which when said together, sound like the Japanese pronunciation of “thank you.”

The origin of the phrase is not explained in the article, but Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/39) provides an explanation of it as a Japanese word.

Benjamin Barrett
Formerly of Seattle, WA
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org