My loser cousin from New York, a Jewish kid with occasional pretensions to use neighborhood slang, wrote this in a recent e-mail:

oh yeah you might have to put me plus one if!!!! lets just keep it at if. you know how women are by now

Now, I'm not exactly a regular watcher of Yo! MTV Raps or anything like that, but I can usually decode most slang. This left me dumbfounded. If it helps, the context of the message was my forthcoming wedding and his first ever visit to Houston. Anyone have the slightest clue what he's talking about?

He means you might have to count him and a guest as coming... probably a lady friend, but it's a big if, because, you should know how women are at your age, so don't count on it.

The plus one thing is usually club slang... like if you're on the guest list, it's your name "plus one".

When i was riding the bus part way to work here in SF a few months back, the bus was always packed with kids going to school. I too was completely dumbfounded by the slang. I SERIOUSLY could not understand half of what they were saying, and i consider myself to be somewhat in touch with youth culture... i'm 25 for gods sake, i shouldn't be feeling that old that fast!

I'd say it means that he will be coming to the wedding with a girl if she doesn't dump him by then.

Or, the if could mean if he doesn't find her in bed with his best friend by then.

Hell, I must be getting young again in my dotage, I understood that straight away!

It actually reads somewhat OK if you just use correct punctuation and grammar, which this new AIM generation doesn't know how to do.

Oh yeah, you might have to put me, plus one if! Lets just keep it as an if. You know how women are by now.

Or, the if could mean if he doesn't find her in bed with his best friend by then.

Or if he finds out she stole his weed.

It all makes sense now. I parsed the sentence as if "plus one if" were an adjective modifying "me", rather than "myself plus possibly another". Yeesh. I feel like I should respond in Cab Calloway jive or something.

Full of typos. It should have been;

O yeah U might haf 2 put me + 1 if! les jus keep @ if. U no how o+ r by now

It actually reads somewhat OK if you just use correct punctuation and grammar, which this new AIM generation doesn't know how to do.

Oh yeah, you might have to put me, plus one if! Lets just keep it as an if. You know how women are by now.

I would say that no amount of punctuation could make that sentence grammatically correct, as the slang its self precludes the sentence from being so.

Full of typos. It should have been;

LOL

Yeah, just totally confuse him with your response...

Man, you is butter side smooth to da bone! Ah'll slide yo bitches bro! God damn!

True enough. I just hate reading anything any 10-18 year old trypes into a computer. I cn nvr undstd nething they sa. It's not like it saves them any real time.

Then again, I thought this was cool:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht
oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist
and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.The rset can be a total mses and you
can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not
raed ervey lteter by istlef, butthe wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig huh

That is really cool! I've never seen that before.

Or just use this Jive converter!

http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~eclectic/toys/jive.html

jus

jus? that should be "juz". the letter s is out of style. Also, capital letters just slow you down. brb. g2g. ttyl

"Cut me some slack Jack! Chump doan want da help, chump doan git da help."

-Zeke

|)0n'7 |=0R637 4|30|_|7 7|-|3 "|,337" (0nV3R73R: http://developer.mechanicmatt.com/Leet.php?action=e

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy

That is really cool. It's azamnig how esay taht ralley is to udenrtsnad!

- trs

http://www.languagehat.com/archives/000840.php
Particularly interesting are the the post by guitchus on September 21, 2003 06:06 PM, and this forum thread.

http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/cambridge.asp

I'm sure I saw this connected with the Cyrillic Projector story giving an example of why it becomes very difficult decrypting codes in foreign languages if there are spelling mistakes, whereas in your own language a lot can be extrapolated or assumed from our recognition of words.

edit - hmm, url syntax changed?

Man, you is butter side smooth to da bone! Ah'll slide yo bitches bro! God damn!

Funniest damn post in a long time, the monitor copped for a whole mouthful of tea and I've only just stopped choking!