Grammar 101: Too Many Acronyms
January 27th, 2012 by Michael Kwan
Shorthand isn’t anything new and it’s not unique to the Internet. Terms like P.S. and P.M. have been used for ages and many people don’t even know their origin (postscript and post merediem, respectively). Even so, I find myself using even more acronyms and abbreviations in my online conversations with friends and colleagues.
Some of these come from text speak and others evolved with Internet communication, but here are a few prime examples of what I mean.
- AFAIK: As far as I know. I’ve also used AFAIR, meaning “as far as I remember.”
- AFK: Away from keyboard. This is a typical status I use in my GChat to indicate I’m not actually at my computer.
- BBL: Be back later. This indicates a little longer absence than the usual BRB (be right back). According to Stephen, BBL stands for “bye bye la.”
- FWIW: For what it’s worth.
- IDK: I don’t know. Thanks to the power of the Internet, lack of knowledge is oftentimes temporary.
- IMHO: In my humble opinion (or simply IMO).
- YT: “You there?” or YouTube. The meaning is derived from the context of the conversation. Similarly, I use FB for Facebook and TW for Twitter.
In conversations with friends and colleagues, I’ve come to use many non-standard shorthand terms too, like using “img” for image. The 160 character limit of a standard text message got the ball rolling. The 140 character limit of a Twitter update pushed the ball down the hill. Even where there are no character limits, as would be the case with instant messengers, we find these forms of communication spill over.
You would think that, as a professional writer, this degradation of the human language would irk me. While it would bother me to see them used in any formal or semi-formal writing, I have no qualms about shorthand when it comes to casual conversations. What about you? Do you tend to write everything out or have you started to rely more heavily on acronyms and abbreviations for brevity?
Tags: grammar, grammar tips, word choice
Filed under Freelance Writing.
Well, I’m LMAO, while reading this post. U did a great job with those, but I use ? for IDK and UT for “You There”. 2day or 2morrow I will try 2 come up wit a few more PDQ.
OBTW “wit” was not a mispelling of “With”. IT is a Philly term used when ordering a cheese steak. “Wit Wiz” or “Wit Onions” are the normal terms for ordering my favorite sandwich from my childhood.
I can accept the use of acronyms and abbreviations in my online conversations with friends, but I cringed when such causal style is applied in business emails.
I try my best to not use them unless I really have to. I feel that Twitter actually helps my writing because I try to write consciely but get my point across in one tweet.
If you think about it, “talk less, say more.”
With the 140 characters limitation on Twitter, it’s not always possible to not use acronyms and abbreviations and still get the point across in one tweet.
I agree with “talk less say more”, but when you have a world wide audience with diverse backgrounds and cross-cultural differences, the task of getting your point across gets even more difficult.
I too use most of these acronyms while chatting online mostly. Took me a while to figure all of them out and still trying to keep up with the ones being produced as we speak. Some like ‘lol’ have become a part of pop culture as I see them used everywhere in a lot of contexts these days.
-Jean
There are too many Acronyms. It can be a form of laziness to use them when it isn’t necessary. Also it can be difficult to keep up with the increasing use of them.