freak shit is my new decoration

There are! I covered a few in a previous ask, but generally we don't use many acronyms and abbreviations - at least, not in comparison with English! The Welsh language style guide on the Welsh Government's website even casts a bit of shade towards the English language's overuse of them:

"Acronyms occur commonly (and are indeed overused) in English texts."

I wouldn't abbreviate 'gyda llaw' (by the way) into 'gll' (btw) because that's not an abbreviation that's happened naturally in the Welsh language - generally, abbreviations only work if there's a mutual understanding between the writer and the reader. Personally, I'd just use 'btw' if I was writing casually, even if the rest of the sentence was in Welsh! But because this blog has developed into somewhat of a learning tool for a lot of people, I try to use the Welsh-language equivalent whenever possible, even if it doesn't always 100% replicate a fluent Welsh speaker's colloquialism.

Having said that - we might have fewer abbreviations and acronyms, but that doesn't mean we don't use them! These are the ones that I'd say are relatively common (for me, at least):

CGÂPh (cyn gynted â phosib) = ASAP (as soon as possible)

AYYB (ac yn y blaen) = etc

PBH (pen-blwydd hapus) = happy birthday

OMB (o mam bach) = oh my God (literally 'oh little mother')

YFMI (yn fy marn i) = IMO (in my opinion)

I think a big reason as to why we tend to avoid abbreviations and acronyms unless they're already well-established is the fact that the Welsh alphabet is made up of several digraphs, or double letters (Ll, Ch, Dd, etc - or ayyb!). Unless the acronym makes proper use of upper and lowercase, the amount of words making up the acronym won't always be clear.

Take CGÂPh for example: someone unfamiliar with Welsh might assume it's made up of five words, but it's in fact just four - 'Ph' is a digraph! Considering the dominance of lowercase characters on the internet (btw > BTW), certain Welsh-language nuances like this are immediately lost, which is probably why 'gyda llaw' (by the way) will never become 'gll'.

i came out to my grandma at the beginning of the year over the phone. She really didn't (and I knew) know what transgender was or anything but this past weekend, we were able to see each other in person for the first time since i started my transition. For being 84 years old, the chat went as great as it could have gone! She caught me as I was leaving and she gave me a silver bracelet with turquoise and coral stones. She told me that this style is what Navajo women wear.