The 80s Signoff

By Lori Ferraro

Browse through the back pages of any autograph book or yearbook from the 80s and you will find a variety of letters, numbers, periods and slash marks that may not make much sense to you unless you were a teenage girl of the decade.

See, you couldn’t just write “Love, Lori” after you signed someone’s yearbook telling them how much you’re going to miss them, to have a good summer, see you next year, etc. You had to use an abbreviated kind of weird jumble of letters — a girl code if you will — to fully express your true feelings for them.

For example:

KIT

Translation: Keep In Touch.

By far the most commonly used signoff from junior high through senior year, lots of girls wanted me to be sure and KIT. Usually a phone number followed the KIT so you could actually KIT:
80s Signoff: KIT (Keep In Touch)

80s Signoff: KIT (Keep In Touch)

LYLAS

Translation: Love You Like A Sister.

I had one brother in real life so to suddenly have a gaggle of girls loving me like a sister felt pretty damn good:

80s Signoff: LYLAS (Love You Like A Sister)

Stay Sweet

Not an abbreviation or a code I know but jeez, lots of people sure wanted me to stay all sugary sweet. This signoff was often used by middle school boys who were too nervous to use “Love, ____” at the end of their yearbook entries — telling you to “stay sweet” was a much safer bet:

80s Signoff: Stay Sweet

TLA/TLF

Translation: True Love Always/True Love Forever.

Because teenage love was definitely going to last always. Oh, and forever too:

80s Signoff: TLA / TLF (True Love Always / True Love Forever)

B/F/F

Translation: Best Friends Forever.

This one was more likely to stick over the revolving door of boyfriend love — us girls had to stay together. It was an honor and a privilege to be someone’s bestie:

80s Signoff: BFF (Best Friends Forever)

I’m not sure what the yearbook protocol is today. I hope kids still exchange and sign each other’s books for posterity’s sake. And I hope girls are still loving each other like sisters and being the best BFF’s to each other they can possibly be.

80s Signoff: 2 Good 2 Be 4gotten

 

Author: Lori Ferraro

Lori is a writer and actor living in Portland, OR. Her website, Drawn to the 80s, is where her 5 year old draws the greatest music hits of the 1980s. She is a blogger for The Huffington Post and her own blog, Once Upon a Product, is where she writes about important things like beauty products, music, her obsession with Mick Jagger and of course...the 80s.

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