OMG, look how users of Mumsnet created a new slang...

THE social media age has given us a plethora of new words, phrases and acronyms, mostly invented by users in their teens and twenties.

But some of the latest additions to the lexicon have been coming from an unlikely source – the online forum Mumsnet.

Members have created their own shorthand, including abbreviations such as DH for ‘dear husband’ and AIBU for ‘am I being unreasonable?’.

DD and DS are dear/darling daughter and son respectively.

Others are perhaps intended to spare users’ blushes, with DTD – short for ‘doing the deed’ – referring to attempts to conceive.

Slang expert and author Jonathon Green says the Mumsnet lexicon is unusual in that most similar forms of speech do not deal with the more sensitive side of life.

He said: ‘What interests me is that, in coining such phrases as AIBU, Mumsnet is using a form of slang to deal with topics, in this case a sensitivity towards the feelings of others, that slang simply never does.

‘I was amazed at how many people have picked it up.’

Mr Green claimed that throughout most of history, women have used men’s slang.

‘The words for women, or the words for sex, all come down to the concept from a man’s perspective,’ he said.

However, the slang on Mumsnet provides a contrasting female perspective.

He said: ‘The internet and social media have changed everything. On Mumsnet, women run the show.

‘It’s got hundreds of thousands of users, which means its influence on slang is quite substantial.’

Mr Green said the growth of such slang has only been made possible by the internet, which has created a nationwide community of mothers who in previous generations would have been isolated by geography.