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Posted By: shanks Personal code challenge! - 10/25/00 10:56 AM
In the spirit of some challenges of the recent past, I thought I'd try this out on the Awadians (awadeers, wordies, glossophiles, whatever).

I have, for a while, been looking, in desultory fashion, for a place to rent/stay. Loot, a classifieds daily, mainly for London, has proven invaluable in this regard. I recently noticed that it has, at the back, a Personals section. For the sociologists amongst us, these are the main sub-categories:

Heartsearch - women seeking men
Heartsearch - men seeking women
Heartsearch - women seeking women
Heartsearch - men seeking men
Contacts - women seeking men
Contacts - men seeking women
Contacts - women seeking women
Contacts - men seeking men
Contacts - others

From reading the ads in the respective sections, and through considering the titles, I have come to the conclusion that Heartsearch is for those looking for romance/marriage/long term relationships. Naturally, therefore, Contacts, is for those looking for nookie! This, however, is all by way of being a preamble, since the real competition starts now.

In these, as in all classifieds, a code has arisen, consisting of space-and-money-saving abbreviations/acronyms that are recognised by readers, but, when taken out of context, are well-nigh unintelligible.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to provide the 'full length' translation of these abbreviations from the Loot personals. Prize goes to the first post with all correct. Apologies for any way in which this might favour those living in the UK.

Your list (ranged roughly in order of simple to difficult. The judge's interpretation in these matters is final:

1. wltm

2. gsoh

3. tv/ts

4. yo

5. ltr

6. pre-op ts


As your only hint: some of them are specific to the Contacts - others sub-category!

Enjoy.

the sunshine warrior

Posted By: Jackie Re: Personal code challenge! - 10/25/00 08:20 PM
We have some cryptic-seeming codes in those kinds of ads here too, shanks. Here are some imaginings:

1. wltm--want long-term mate
2. gsoh--good, slow of hand
3. tv/ts--true virgin/truly sexy
4. yo--yank off
5. ltr--love to roll
6. pre-op ts--pre-operation tits
-----------------------------------------------

I would like to say that I would prefer that we got away
from awarding prizes.

Posted By: Max Quordlepleen Re: Personal code challenge! - 10/25/00 08:33 PM
I was stuck on a few, but I am nearly certain that "tv/ts" is tranvestite/transsexual, and "pre-op ts" is pre-operation transsexual. As to the others, if my guesses on these two are correct, I think I'm happy to remain ignorant!

Posted By: Marty Re: Personal code challenge! - 10/25/00 09:40 PM
I'm stunned - but pleased - that AWADtalk's influence has extended as far as Loot. I'm pretty certain the people writing the ads meant the following:

1. wltm - wordie lurching towards membership (that's me, and a few o' me mates)

2. gsoh - graduate stranger (to) old hand (only Jackie and tsuwm, so far)

3. tv/ts - ambiguous abbreviation, could be either:
terminal voyeur/tentative stranger (person "outing" as an AWADtalk contributor)
OR
true verbiage/total sh-- (what we post)

4. yo - YART offender (someone usually tolerated patiently by other posters)

5. ltr - long thread ravell-er/-ing (more of who we are and what we do)

6. pre-op ts - pre-operation tsuwm (before his vocab got scrambled. Don't ask about the operation - legal action is pending)

Posted By: shanks Big laugh so far - 10/25/00 09:56 PM
Nice amusing ones from Jackie and others. I suspect that only one of you is taking it at all seriously. Ah well... Good for a laugh, though.

cheer

the sunshine warrior

Posted By: AnnaStrophic Re: Personal code challenge! - 10/27/00 01:08 AM
shanks, I find it disturbing that you ranked the abbreviations from the simplest to the most difficult, when for me 'twas the other way 'round.

(Marty, as usual, your post was a gem! )

Posted By: Marty Re: Personal code challenge! - 10/27/00 02:03 AM
Well come clean, then, Anna, if that's possible in this context. Give us your list starting from the - er - bottom. Nobody appears to want to touch this competition of shanks'.

I'd come to same conclusion as Max on the tv/ts and pre-op ones, I thought maybe "wltm" was "woman looking to marry", but I'm prepared to concede innocence and lack of familiarity with this particular branch of "literature" on the rest.

So...?

Posted By: shanks Just for closure - 10/27/00 09:57 AM
Since nobody seems to be prepared to risk it, these are the 'translations', as best as I can make out...

1. wltm = would like to meet

2. gsoh = great sense of humour

3. tv/ts = transvestite/transsexual (and some of you got this right)

4. yo = years old (when talking about age - a bit of a red herring!)

5. ltr = leading to relationship (as in friendship - ...)

6. pre-op ts = pre-op transsexual (indeedy - I did say they came from the 'Contact - Other' section!)

cheer

the sunshine warrior

Posted By: jmh Re: personals - 10/27/00 10:26 AM
Do other places have those "I saw you" columns?


Posted By: shanks Re: personals - 10/27/00 11:39 AM
"I saw you"???

Sorry. Lost me there. If you're simply talking about personal classifieds, then I'm sure there are many on the web that we can all get to - but why?

Posted By: jmh Re: personals - 10/27/00 11:59 AM
The "I saw you" section is part of the personals in the local rag.

It goes something like "I saw you crossing the road yesterday by MacDonalds - you stopped to pick up the bus ticket that I dropped on the floor but I didn't find out your name ... more slush etc" Reply to PO Box 395762

I was just wondering if they were widespread as I haven't seen them anywhere else.

Posted By: shanks Re: personals - 10/27/00 12:07 PM
They sound awfully sweet. And probably pretty useless too. The last time I heard of them was probably in Sherlock Holmes - what was the one in which the code word 'pericolo' was used?

Posted By: of troy Re: personals - 10/27/00 02:04 PM
Yes, Jo, the the Villiage Voice (NY) is filled with "i saw you" on the subway, on line at a movie theater. It hard to decide if they are funny or sad sometimes. I guess having seen them for years, i never thought about them being unusual.

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