btdub(s)

[Steve Kl.]

There were proposals at some point to get people to pronounce "www" as
"trip-dub," I recall, but it never took off.

- Steve

On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 3:24 PM, Benjamin Zimmer <
bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      btdub(s)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I was talking to a college student journalist about the effects of
> "text-speak" on spoken language, and she mentioned the usual suspects,
> "LOL"
> (pronounced "loll") and "OMG" (pronounced "oh-em-gee"). But she also
> mentioned the expression "btdub" (pronounced "bee-tee-dub"), derived from
> "BTW" ('by the way'). UrbanDictionary has entries for the more common
> "btdubs" (variously spelled) back to 2004:
>
> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=btdubs
> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=btdubz
> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=btdubbs
> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bt+dubs
> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bee-tee-dubs
>
> And here's a Usenet example from 2002:
>
> ---
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.music.ween/msg/666fd224428be865
> alt.music.ween, May 13, 2002
> Btdubs, Pittsburgh kicks Phile's ass as far as cities go, sorry Ween, but
> it's true.  Go Steelers!
> ---
>
> I don't think this one's been discussed here before, but I'd wager it's
> shown up in elicitations of student slang from Larry, Connie, et al.
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
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