Why you should never say “YOLO”

I’m sure you’ve all said “YOLO” at least once in your lives. It’s a known acronym for “You Only Live Once” that people typically use as an excuse to do dumb and dangerous things. I’m not commenting here as to why you shouldn’t express this idea (that’s another article for another day) but rather why the acronym “YOLO” is egregiously incorrect and an insult to the English language.

You only live once. You only live once. Think about that. That doesn’t mean what you’d assume it does. “You only live once” means that the ONLY thing you ever do is live once. That means you don’t eat, breathe, sleep, go to school, sit in meeting, or do your homework, nor are you reading this blog post right now. ALL you are doing is living once, because if you say YOLO, living once is all you EVER do.

If you wish to make an excuse to do dangerous things without harming your language along the way, you should in fact use the acronym “YLOO” (pronounced “y’loo): “You live only once”. That way, the “only” is modifying only (ha ha) the word “once”. That means that you don’t get multiple lives, it means you have just the once chance, that your time is limited, and everything you mean to express, and you sound pretty cool too because you’re using a new acronym that nobody’s heard of yet. So don’t offend English. Say “no” to YOLO. Use the correct YLOO and you will be well along the path to a happy and successful life.

By Andrew D. Harsh, photo credit carrieburrows.com