Several months ago I wrote a column about abbreviations and my dislike for them. Though I will never understand the draw of bae, cray or totes, I will admit I made a bit of an oversight. You see, I forgot to consider the benefits of shorthand.
I am often so busy I forget to eat lunch until about 3 p.m. When my stomach protests by gnawing on itself and making it so all at once I am ravenous and grumpy from hunger. In a world where everything is on fast forward, shorthand can be a simple way to share information more efficiently.
That’s great as long as the shorthand stays where it belongs, in informal texts or emails.
As reporters, we take a lot of notes and most of us develop our own blend of shorthand.
I often use pls (please), thx (thanks) or lol (laughing out loud) in texts. I’ve noticed pls has begun creeping in to the emails I write to the reporters in this newsroom. Often, when I come in in the morning I have more than 400 emails to sift through, so I think my reporter colleagues will understand if I cheat a bit on please.
However, I would be mortified if my shorthand (even a simple pls) made it into a professional (outside the newsroom) email. I must be cognizant of not using shorthand when composing correspondence because it has become somewhat second nature to me.
It’s when shorthand becomes too much of our speech and writing patterns that I take issue. Brb (be right back) is one thing but I often feel I didn’t get the memo on most of the acronyms and end up really confused as to what the heck people are trying to say.
When my hubby and I first started seeing each other we did a lot of flirt texting. He would often respond to my jokes with lmao. At first I thought he was just a terrible speller and he was calling my jokes lame (to this day I have not idea how I got lame out of lmao, but that’s beside the point). I finally had to ask him what it was he was actually saying, much to my embarrassment. Turns out he didn’t think I was lame at all, he thought I was pretty darn funny. Lmao stands for laugh my a*s off.
Sadly this is not the only occasion where I’ve been out of the loop on acronyms. Smh (shake my head) confounded me until I finally did an Internet search for its meaning, NSFW (not safe for work) could have gotten me into all sorts of trouble had I not asked a coworker what it meant (my lunch hour Buzzfeed visits could have spelled my downfall) and FTW (for the win) confused both my husband and I until we gave in and looked it up. Thank goodness there are texting acronym dictionaries available online or we would end up on those hilarious “mom texts” posts.
However, if this shorthand we’ve become reliant on is so complicated people need online texting dictionaries, is it really as convenient as we make it out to be?
And when did it become necessary to go from haha to rotfl (rolling on the floor laughing)? If you really are rolling on the floor laughing as often as your texts indicate, you’ve got more going on in your life than I can begin to address in 650 words.
Please for the love of all that is holy, don’t let text acronyms become a part of your speech IRL (in real life). I cannot take a person seriously who would rather say TMI (too much information) than the actual words.
I know full well I may be coming off as a bit of a curmudgeon but I am just fine with that. I love words and, though shorthand has it’s place, there’s not always a need to condense all the time.
