It’s surprising how quickly we adapt to things: nine months ago, most of us had never played bridge online before, yet it feels almost normal now. One slightly surreal side-effect is the way an older generation of players have begun using text-acronyms with the gusto of teenagers: TY, SY, NP and, if anything remotely funny happens, it’s LOL every time.
Actually, some acronyms took me a while to get used to. In my very first online game, my partner typed ‘GLP’ as I was about to play a doubled contract; puzzled, I concluded it was short for gulp. I was slightly insulted that he kept typing ‘gulp’ whenever I was about to play — until the penny dropped; he was wishing me luck. I’d been thrown by the quaint formality of adding P for partner. As the weeks went by, other bits of text-slang completely defeated me.
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