btdub(s)

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Dec 10 20:46:36 UTC 2009


At 3:37 PM -0500 12/10/09, Steve Kl. wrote:
>There were proposals at some point to get people to pronounce "www" as
>"trip-dub," I recall, but it never took off.
>
>- Steve

How bout "dub-y'all"?

LH

>
>On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 3:24 PM, Benjamin Zimmer <
>bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  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
>>
>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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