Whether you used to laugh out loud and now you LOL, or you used to ship packages through Federal Express and now you do it through FedEx, there is no denying that language is getting shorter, faster and catchier — sometimes to the detriment of linguistics, as evidenced by Flickr's MIA e or the unsightly but popular CU L8R. But, properness aside, the inclination of tightening, merging and otherwise welding commonly used words, terms, and companies' or even persons' names is simply a reflection of our constant crusade to make our lives easier by shaving off a few seconds of any given conversation, correspondence or transaction. Manifested in different written forms and expressed in a variety of pronunciations — think ASAP (aysap), AWOL (awall), DoD, BevNap, Tomkat, Brangelina, starchitects, spanglish, etc. — most of these shortenings become a natural part of our lexicon as they roll nicely off the tongue and help express dual meanings in one fell swoop. And, perhaps the catchiest and most enviable form of syncopation is the two-word, four-letter (2/4 from hereon) syllabic abbreviation. Like SoHo.
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