#abbrevs

More than 76% of old sailors use codes to keep their descendants from understanding their messages. Are you prepared?

.-../---/.-../ : Lots of Latitude

-.../-/.--/ : By The Water

-/-.../..../ : The Beautiful Horizon

.--/-/..-./ : Where’s The Fo’c’s’le?

../-../-.-/ : I’m Drowning, Kid

..-./..-./.../ : Fit For Swabbing

../--/..../---/ : It’s My Home Ocean

-.../.-./-.../ : Boat Ride, Baby!

../-../-.-./ : I’d Date (the) Captain

.-/-/--/ : Ahoy There, Matey!

-/..-./.--/ : These Foamy Waves

.../---/.../ : Sailing Off (into) Sunset

---/--/--./ : Ow, Matey! Goddammit

---/--/.--/ : Ooh, Matey! Whale!!

.../--/..../ : Samuel My Hero*

..-./--/.-../ : First Mate Larry**

.../-/..-./..-/ : Sexy Telegram For U

.-./---/..-./.-../ : Radio Out, Feeling Lonely

../-../--./.-/..-./ : I Don’t Get Amidships Frequently

.-../--/.-/---/ : Landlubber Mofos All Over

--./-/..-./---/ : (have a) Good Time Falling Overboard

../-.-./-.--/--/../ : Iceberg Coming, You’ll Manage It

*Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph

I’m on Mental Floss talking about the legit linguistics of abbrevs: 

Perhaps the best part of abbrevs is how they intersect with other slang, like acronyms. Most of the time, you just add an s or a z to the end of the acronym without actually abbreving it at all, as in lols and omgz, but acronyms with w are special. The best known are BTdubs (from "by the way" via BTW), dubsTF (from WTF), and FTdubs (from "for the win" via FTW), but I also found people on Twitter using OMdubs ("on my way" via OMW), BMdubs (BMW, as in the car), and even one guy who uses FWIdubs ("for what it's worth").

The "dubs" abbrevs really put the lie to the idea that people abbrev just because it's easier, since all the w acronyms are actually shorter than their "dubs" versions.