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If you saw the article in the Times Magazine entitled "The Ling" back in July, you're going to know exactly what we're talking about: the popular abbreviation of language, such that we all speak in adorable, single syllables. Yes, we're guilty of writing "natch" instead of "naturally," and our frantic instant messages are heavily peppered with "whatevs" and "obvs" (as originated by Mark Graham of Whatevs, who really isn't to blame for the direction in which this has all gone). And that's really okay — the IMs, the text messages, the situations where you have to type so fast that your fingers are moving more quickly than your brain ever could.

What we're talking about is the reprehensible phenomenon of speaking in a teenybopper's pidgin English. If you really loved your best friend, you wouldn't reduce her to a "bestie." You can type "obvs" all you want, but the second you speak it, you're a caveman who can't handle long vowel sounds. "Totes" is a bag, not a substitute for "totally." "Obvi" sounds like some demented geometry term or, worse, like you're trying to land a role on The O.C. And if you actually say "natch" out loud, you're just a fucking idiot. Was that last suffix really too hard for you?

It just gets worse. There's even a growing number of fools — grown women! — who use the fake word "lylas," as in "love you like a sister." Which, if you want to sound like your junior-high yearbook, is like totes adorbs. K.I.T., A.S.S., S.T.F.U.

Should this word-shortening continue, it won't be long before we're reduced to cutesy grunting. So let's head this one off at the pass, shall we? Speak like a goddamn adult already.