"Don't Mind Her, She Speaks In Hieroglyphics!"

We have all been in those situations, the ones where you are just dying to say something to your friends but there is someone nearby who you cannot risk the message getting to. Maybe you've been those other people. For instance, as a small child perhaps your parents spoke a different language or spelled out buzz words so you wouldn't be able to eavesdrop on the conversation. However, as we become more literate, these primitive strategies become far less workable. Therefore, alternative alternative languages for secret communication between friends, spouses, boyfriends and girlfriends, etc must be created in order to make sure the information doesn't fall on the wrong ears. I like to call this language hieroglyphics. As I am very aware that hieroglyphics actually refers to the writing system created by the ancient Egyptians consisting of various symbols and pictures rather than what we use now for words, I think it is an accurate term for this form of communication because it involves deciphering if you don't understand it and can sound ridiculous to the untrained ear.

In order to effectively create this language, one must first establish with whom they will share it. It's important that they practice using it together in a typical conversational context on a regular basis in order to effectively use it in the somewhat awkward situation for which it is intended. Also, make sure that any explanations of new phrases, etc (or acronyms depending on the linguistic system you adopt) take place only with those who should hear them.

Additionally, it is important to come up with a plan for what you will do in case someone catches on to your hieroglyphic language. It may be something as simple as one of those in the conversation saying to the questioner, "Don't mind her, she speaks in hieroglyphics!" and playing your code language off as a joke. Otherwise, if you are good at catching onto social ques and realize that your unintended audience realizes what's going on you will need to quickly transition away from this public private conversation and save it for an actual private setting.

In order to effectively communicate with this inner group of friends the groundwork must be worked on but the conversations and flow of information will definitely be worth it in the end.

Make it FBO!

Maybe you have or maybe you haven't noticed, but Facebook has been going through a lot of changes lately. The changes I am most entertained by are their new additions to the lengthy list of relationship statuses one can be involved in. Before we only had five options, but Mark Zuckerberg and his rock star team has added "in an open relationship," "widowed," "separated," "divorced," "in a civil union," and "in a domestic partnership" to the the list. Though I recognize that relationships aren't always cut and dry, in a relationship or single, I question whether anyone would seriously admit to being in an open relationship with someone. Additionally, if someone were truly widowed, they probably wouldn't post it online because the people who would need to know would already know and they would probably consider that a rather personal bit of information as opposed to the public list of movies they like. No one who wants a smooth time in court for divorce would even consider putting separated on their profile as that's just asking for a temporary relationship while they are sorting things out. If someone were in a civil union they would likely consider his or herself in a relationship or married to their significant other before they posted their civil union on Facebook. And finally, the domestic partnership choice seems as if it may be taboo as one in a domestic partnership may be comfortable with their close family and friends seeing this relationship but maybe not their employer, etc.

With this being said, I question why Mark and his team felt it necessary to make these changes to their profile. After all, the problem with posting a legitimate relationship status on Facebook is that when (if) it ends, not only do you have to deal with the emotional fall out of the relationship ending, but you also have to make the relationship Facebook official, thus announcing what could be a very personal, painful experience to maybe 1,000-2000 people. For this reason, many people, even those in relationships have resorted to keeping their romantic lives offline and posting friendships in the form of relationships. The phenomenon of girls in relationships, complicated relationships, engagements, and marriages with their close friends is almost more common than two people posting their legitimate romantic relationship on Facebook. So why would Facebook feel it necessary to add SIX more entertaining relationship statuses for their users personal enjoyment?! I guarantee that in the coming weeks we will see a definite increase in girls in domestic partnerships and civil unions with each other simply because they are bored of their fictitious marriages and complicated relationships. What's next? I'm talking to ______, I am interested in _______ but haven't asked them out yet, I am casually dating ________, and the list goes on....

Rollin' Like A Balla

So you are driving around town in your vehicle. Perhaps you drive a red Toyota Yaris or maybe a black Lincoln Navigator. Regardless of your make or model, your car definitely has a personality. While your first few drives around town may feel awkward, like hanging out with someone you've just met or a first date, eventually you and your car become more comfortable with each other. For this reason, it is absolutely vital that you not rush the naming process. In this way, your car is not like your child. If you had a baby and refused to name him or her for a few weeks with the excuse that you were "still getting a feel for their personality" not only would everyone think you were crazy, but you would struggle to fill out the necessary paperwork. Though some may judge you for not immediately naming your wheels, the stronger y'all's relationship, the more fitting the name will be. For example, upon buying a used tan Subaru Legacy with subwoofers, you may not immediately realize it's tendencies to make strange noises or move in the wrong direction. However, with time you will almost definitely realize just how fitting the name "The Bronze Dragon" is for this particular vehicle. From here, a beautiful relationship is certainly born. Unfortunately, there can be a downside to this "get to know you period" in your relationship with your vehicle. That is, outsiders can crash your relationship and name your car without any personal experience weighing on their decisions. For example, you are trying out a yellow Ford Escape, trying to come up with the perfect name to fit her personality and your uninvolved friends immediately see her and name her "The Short Bus," a name she cannot easily avoid. While you may try to tell people her name is something else, chances are her first demeaning name is already permanent. Forunately, there are other things you can do to describe her personality and improve her repuation. The first is to give her a nickname. For example, an appropriate and less degrading nickname for "The Short Bus" may be "Lil' Shawty." Secondly, you can assign your car a fitting theme song based on their personality. For "Lil Shawty" and appropriate song may be Replay by Iyaz or Black and Yellow by Trey Songz. Regardless of what you come up with, it's important that you feel comfortable with the name so that when people ask who is driving you can speak up and say, "We can take _________." Or when you are frustrated in traffic instead of freaking out at your fellow drivers, you and ___________ can commiserate while listening to his or her theme song. Happy Driving!

Thank you Drew Dinkens for the creative title for this particular entry.

DJMB

I am aware that in most cases speaking in acronyms is inappropriate. The argument for this social norm lies in that generally we believe that acronyms are to be reserved for AIM, facebook, email, text messaging, and other informal written forms of communication where as good grammar with correct diction and syntax are appropriate in all situations. However, I will guarantee you that there is a set of acronym speak that is perfect for verbal communication in informal conversation. These acronyms can be referred to as the "judge acronyms." They are formed as follows:

• DJM: Don't Judge Me
• I(T)JY: I'm (Totally) Judging You
• ITJ(Insert first initial of name of someone here): I'm Totally Judging _________.

Before I expand on the usefulness of these acronyms, I will provide my readers with some helpful examples of them in context.

• Your friend is wearing a wild outfit, that is jean shorts over hot pink tights with converse tennis shoes and a wife beater thank top. Upon seeing her, you immediately tell her ITJY because quite frankly, her outfit is janky.
• You are eating lunch with some new friends who aren't yet acquainted with your eating habits. You order plain pasta with only butter and salt. Everyone at the table stares at you judgingly as they haven't yet had the opportunity to eat this delicious dish. In efforts to defend your food you say "DJM" because really everybody has different taste buds.
• You are hanging out with your two best friends discussing the events of the weekend. You find out that one of your friends, Tony spent his weekend cheating on his beautiful girlfriend, Eva. During this conversation you look at your other friend and say ITJT, because it's definitely not cool to cheat.

The judgement acronyms aren't meant to come off as mean or vindictive. Rather, they are meant as a means of communicating a lack of approval between friends. The most exciting part about speaking with these acronyms is the confused look you get from those who aren't in the loop. In fact, you will be able to TJT for their lack of social intuition.

Add me to your Buddylist

You know in middle school when technology class consisted of countless hours of learning to type with Mavis Beacon or Type To Learn 2?! Well if you are anything like me you know that these were the most worthless programs as everyone knows the real way to learn to type is with AIM (or A-I-M if you prefer). The countless hours you spent after school during fifth and sixth grade logging onto your AIM account with some ridiculous name like ElephantsR2Cute or QTpa2T and chatting with your "best friends" on your buddylist. It was always clear in technology class who the popular kids were (they probably aimed the most people) as they were always the best typers. During the time when you weren't chatting that girl you sometimes saw at lunch or the boy you had the biggest crush on ever but were too afraid to talk to in real life, you were sprucing up your AIM account.

Everyone knows how important it was to have the best combination of background color, font color, and actual font. One could spend hours working on these settings in order to make their conversations look the cutest. If you weren't concerned with these colorful details, chances are you were updating your profile. From my own experience the most popular topics for the profile were some type of song lyrics, most likely something similar to Dashboard Confessional's "Hands Down," a list of inside jokes you had with your friends half of which were made up so you would seem more popular, and finally a list of shoutouts to your friends, aka a list of your friends and some yearbook like comment. "Rachel-you are such a good friend I love going to school with you. LYLAS." And finally, you spent the most amount of time picking out your buddy icon. Everyone knows that the icons provided by AOL were not adequte, so you logged onto your browser and searched for the ideal icon. If you were a girl, chances are you were after that perfect doll or avatar icon that either had cherries or some dumb quote about love. If you were a boy it was probably something that resembled SouthPark or an attractive girl.

Now you've got it, your icon, font, and profile are all in perfect sync, optimized for the perfect chatting experience. However, all of those hours of work are worthless unless you have the right buddies on your list. After all, who can see all of the hard work you've put into your account unless you have at least 100 buddies. No your buddies aren't always your best friends, because who has 100 best friends? That's why you add your friends to the "Best Friends" list but also have a separate list for girls and boys. The headings for these probably look like "GURLZ" and "BOIIZ" because while you do know how to type, you clearly don't know how to spell. Furthermore, you always had your crush on your list and would get so excited when the door opened next to their name.

While we are embarrassed to look back on this obsessive precursor to our Myspace days, at least we can determine that we are typing our college essays quickly as a result of all of the "lol"s "rofl"s and "itjy"s you typed at age 10.