How to tell the world you're dying laughing.

XD. The strangest word said to date in my household.

Know it? You should, if you’re marketing to kids.

My 13-year old son uses it quite often. TOO often. It becomes annoying. So I finally had to do what all good mothers do: look it up.

According to the urban dictionary and other online sources, XD is used in funny moments, embarrassing moments and plain old stupid moments. 

XD is represented by the emoji above, which represents the guy who is "dying laughing."

When you look at this emoji, and imagine rotating it 90 degrees to the left, it will make an X from the shut eyes and a D from the laughing open mouth, like this:  >< D 

XD could easily be considered the most annoying internet expression ever created. Here's an example of usage in my own home:

Son texting: “Hey Mum, I got an A on my math test today.”

Me: “Awesome! You must be proud.”

Son: “Actually, it’s an A minus. Not so good. XD.”

Uhhhhhhhhh. What is the accurate response to that? 

Here’s another example (not from my home):

Person 1:       *tells a dumb joke.*

Person 2:      "You try so hard, it's funny. XD."

Yeah, I don’t get it either. The letters remind me of a punk band of the 80's. Or maybe an extra strength painkiller. "Hey, can you pick up some XD at the pharmacy?"

As a writer, this evolution of the English language is almost offensive.

First we had the introduction of acronyms to shorten words for texting purposes. LOL, LMAO, BRB, TMI...

But this is a whole other level.

This one is a three-step process. This is taking a pictorial symbol (the emoji) used to represent a verb and emotion (dying of laughter) then next, translating it into an emoticon: >< D, and finally, creating an acronym from that. XD.

Does that mean it will become a common household word in short order?

What will our language of the future be? Who knows... considering binge-watch, YOLO and worstest have all been added to the Oxford Dictionary as legitimate words, anything can happen. Yes. Seriously. WORSTEST. I find that rather, well... XD.

Christine Thompson is the owner of Jellybean Communications, her freelance copywriting company. She communicates with clients using proper written English and avoids using acronyms and emoticons in communication, barring the odd :) that slips into an email. :)