Somehow I accidently got "then" written when I was intending to use "they". Thanks, I have now corrected the post where it occurred.
I am close to deaf at this point after being single sided for many, many years; the one ear that is not dead is now profound. I grew up in the hearing community and am still in it. I tried taking ASL twice, when I was in my 40's, way back in the 1980's and made no contacts to actually use it. Thus, I have forgotten 99% of what I did learn. It has been so many years since I saw anyone using sign here that I have forgotten when it was.
I am one of the ones that has to work extra when someone uses extreme abbreviations, which I am under the impression come from the texting world. I very rarely text as it takes at least to people to use it and most of my bunch does not. Some, like your use of "R u deaf" are easy to translate to written English but some are not at all.
