Okay, I’m a major curmudgeon. Who doesn’t use these friendly abbreviations and cute little emoticons? What’s wrong with a little quickie communication in the age of Twitter, when every character counts?
Scroll down the right column of this blog and you’ll see that yes, I do Tweet. (Feel free to follow me.) Like everyone else, I only have 140 characters to make my point (that includes spaces). But I almost never use abbreviations.
As far as I’m concerned, LOL and OMG go hand in hand with the multiple exclamation points (see last week’s Peeve). Whose ass is really falling off when they write [LMAO!!!!!!!]? Mine isn’t. The writer seems to take me for an idiot who can’t tell when he or she is making a funny. It’s rather like that lout who tells the off-color joke at a cocktail party and then roars at his own cleverness. He deserves the icy smile or deadpan look in return.
Or maybe the real culprit is the writer’s laziness. If your words can’t convey a sense of whimsy, you’re tempted to throw in a :) so that your reader won’t take offense. That might be the safest route, but writers seemed to do fine without :), :(, and the rest up until a few years ago. Personally I liked reading between the lines. It made me feel smart.
So don’t ask me to TXT you or ask me WTF? or assure me you’ll BBL. Try English. It’s my native language. :)
Scroll down the right column of this blog and you’ll see that yes, I do Tweet. (Feel free to follow me.) Like everyone else, I only have 140 characters to make my point (that includes spaces). But I almost never use abbreviations.
As far as I’m concerned, LOL and OMG go hand in hand with the multiple exclamation points (see last week’s Peeve). Whose ass is really falling off when they write [LMAO!!!!!!!]? Mine isn’t. The writer seems to take me for an idiot who can’t tell when he or she is making a funny. It’s rather like that lout who tells the off-color joke at a cocktail party and then roars at his own cleverness. He deserves the icy smile or deadpan look in return.
Or maybe the real culprit is the writer’s laziness. If your words can’t convey a sense of whimsy, you’re tempted to throw in a :) so that your reader won’t take offense. That might be the safest route, but writers seemed to do fine without :), :(, and the rest up until a few years ago. Personally I liked reading between the lines. It made me feel smart.
So don’t ask me to TXT you or ask me WTF? or assure me you’ll BBL. Try English. It’s my native language. :)
