There is a cheat sheet in the top left drawer of my desk. It proves what a doddering, clueless croak I’ve become at age 61.

I assembled this guide out of necessity. It’s the only way I can decipher some of the e-mail I receive from readers.

Frankly, I should count my blessings because e-mail communication is as high-tech as I go. Meaning I’ve never text-messaged. And, the Good Lawd Hisself willing, never will.

It’s bad enough that some fools feel sooo compelled to reach out and touch someone that they walk around with a cell phone at their jaw every waking minute. Or, even worse, with one of those hideous hands-free devices impaled in one ear like a cruel medical experiment gone awry.

But at least these people speak honest-to-gosh words.

Not so in the world of text-messaging. Texters have a language of their own, and it’s worming into everyday English.

My introduction to this nuttiness began when I started getting e-mail from somebody named LOL.

Such as: “Your column today was funny! LOL”

Or: “Have you ever considered counseling? LOL”

Or: “Do they actually pay you to write that $#%*!? LOL”

I finally asked if anyone else in the newsroom was getting e-mail from this LOL person. When the catcalls subsided, I realized LOL was text-speak for “laughing out loud.”

(At this point, it is permissible for children to guffaw at Old Man Venable’s utter stupidity - after they have looked up “guffaw” in the dictionary. Oops, I forgot; kids don’t know what a dictionary is these days. Forget I mentioned it.)

In any event, that’s why I keep the cheat sheet.

With it, I’ve become familiar with a few of the more common buzzwords, like IMHO (”in my humble opinion”) and IDK (”I don’t know”).

Alas, some trick me every time. Whenever I see SWIM (”see what I mean?”), I instinctively think it refers to my morning habit of stroking laps in the West Side Y’s pool.

Even worse are the emoticon doohickeys.

I always have to consult the cheat sheet if an e-mail contains an “:-)” or an “:-(” or an “;-)” because I never can remember which means what.

(For the sane who haven’t bought into this New Age gobbledygook, those symbols translate to “happy,” “sad” and “wink,” respectively. I think.)

Of course, it is incumbent upon any geezer-in-training to gripe about members of the younger generation. Their clothes are scandalous. Their music makes no sense. Their manners are atrocious. Blah-blah-blah. This has been going on since 400 B.C.

But it does trouble me that text-messaging marks yet another chapter in the dumbing-down of the masses.

There’s nothing wrong with short, simple declarations. Ernest Hemingway, who knew a thing or three about putting words on paper, was a master of brevity.

But imagine how the world of literature would have been robbed if Santiago, addressing his giant marlin in “The Old Man and the Sea,” had merely said “BFF, LY” instead of, “Fish, I love you and respect you very much.”

BY SAM VENABLE

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