Nope, if you want to put your finger on the entity that's currently shaping and torquing our lexicon like a game of drunken Twister, you're already there: Look down at your keyboard, and then at the screen and down at your keyboard again. Yup. Our bard would be the Internet, breeding ground of such gems as "BRB," "tweet," and, sadly, "OMG!!!!!"
Some may call the advent of Internet-speak the demise of the English language, and to them we would say, "STFU."
Last year, "unfriend" was deemed the word of the year by the Oxford American Dictionary. So, much like that tattoo of your initials you got emblazoned across your butt last summer after too many G&Ts, this new slang is here to stay.
Besides, Shakespeare coined the word "puke," so it wasn't all sunshine and roses back in the 1500s, anyway.
Still, there are some Internet terms that don't quite translate when applied to real-life situations (or, okay, any situation other than the original and intended one), because they're too obtuse, redundant or just plain stupid.
Here's our take on three of the most awkward phrases and symbols to go from screen to scene...
And so begins my Netiquette column -- which I write with my Stuff Hipsters Hate co-blogger, Andrea Bartz -- this week over at CNN.