Frequently used as chat slang, a gramogram (or grammagram) is a word or phrase that is phonetically similar to a letter or group of letters or numbers. For example, the word “too” is pronounced the same as the number “2”, and the word “you” is pronounced the same as the letter “U.” These instances are considered gramograms, and the combination of characters to form the phrase “U2” (“you too”) is also considered a gramogram.

Gramograms can also be mixtures of pronounced and normally read characters, causing some confusing examples like “L8R” (later), which requires you to say “eight”, but read the letters “L” and “R” like normal.

More examples of gramograms

  • B4 - “Before”
  • C - “See” or “Sea”
  • CU - “See you”
  • EZ - “Easy”
  • GR8 - “Great”
  • H8 - “Hate”
  • H8R - “Hater”
  • L8 - “Late”
  • L8R - “Later”
  • M8 - “Mate”
  • OK - “Okay”
  • R - “Are”
  • RU - “Are you”
  • U - “You”
  • Y - “Why”
  • YUNO - “Why you no”
  • 1 - “Won”
  • 2 - “To” or “Too”
  • 4 - “For” or “Fore”
  • 8 - “Ate”

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