Those of a certain age, you will remember in 1988 when Van Halen released the second album with Sammy Hagar as the lead singer: ‘OU812’. Now, despite what you may have thought of the album itself (I know some of you have never gotten over the loss of David Lee Roth) what was undoubtedly cool was the title. I remember thinking, “WOW. It’s letters and numbers but YOU CAN SAY IT AS A SENTENCE! WOWWOWWOW!!!!” Not a lot of bands had done that before, and this sort of short-speak was new and unique.

Now of course, it is commonplace. ‘U’ has replaced the incredibly difficult and laborious spelling of ‘you’ and thank goodness someone came up with ‘2’ as opposed to ‘to!’ I don’t know about you, but typing out that one other character to actually write the word was really bringing me down. Continue reading Is It Just Me? →