You all know that one guy. Instead of laughing, he says 'l-o-l'. Instead of 'hang on' or 'be right back' he'll say 'b-r-b'. You all probably laugh at him too.
Well he's here in China.
While heading home from work, I overheard a random snatch of conversation ending.
八十八
(ba shi ba, eighty-eight)
I didn't quite get it at first. '88' is common Chinese text messaging short hand for bye-bye, because in Chinese 8 is pronounced 'ba', and so 'eight-eight' sounds like 'ba-ba' or bye bye, which is pretty universally here how people say goodbye.
Frankly I liked 再见（zaijian). When anyone here says 'bye-bye' it comes out sounding like 'bai-bai' and incredibly girlish.
Anyways, the point is that adopting internet shorthand into spoken conversation is incredibly stupid. 'Eighty-eight' spoken is not easier than any of the normal ways of saying goodbye, in fact, it's one more syllable than either. It also doesn't sound cool. Please stop.
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Thoughts? Corrections? Let me know at albert [at] albertsun.info