Students are supposed to impress teachers with what they know. If you look smart, you get a good grade. That's how it works.The columnist's history of abbreviations, however, doesn't go back far enough.
To someone who is used to seeing a more formal writing style, this e-mail looks like it's one notch up from a cave scratching.
How much time did the student save by abbreviating "you" and "because"? Or by skipping the uppercase letters? My guess is about two seconds. Was it worth looking like a bonehead?
The point is, there are times and places where shortcuts are OK, just as there are times and places where tiny swimsuits don't look ridiculous. If you're writing to a friend or peer, it's OK to abbreviate.
But in anything else, it's a bad idea. This includes an e-mail to a boss, teacher, or anyone you want to impress. It includes term papers, cover letters, and even your private diary that you're hoping will someday be discovered like Anne Frank's was, thus earning global adoration for your sly wit and sensitive soul.
Imagine the agony of chatting with someone who wrote, "What you just typed was very funny. I am at this moment laughing out loud," instead of "LOL."Text-speak, however, is a rediscovery of shortcuts telegraphers invented years ago, so as to make fewer strokes of the Vibroplex Bug. (Including LOL, but that meant "lots of love" in those days.)
You can communicate more information in less time by adopting textisms.
The title of this post is a routine train report sent to Rondout (RO, . .. . .; sent twice in order to confirm to a busy operator that there is an incoming message) from the operator at Wadsworth (U) of the passage of train 46 (the 4 pm departure from Milwaukee) at 32 minutes past the hour; nominal for an eighty minute nonstopper in those days.
Train orders, however, had to be in the proper form, without erasure, interlineation, or forbidden abbreviations. And the weekly carloading reports had to be in complete sentences.
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