Instant messenger, spending all day on your phone, tweeting and
so much more has now created many more abbreviations that young adults are now
using on a daily basis. These things like G2G (got to go), WTF (what the
f*ck), and so much more have now created more and more issues on the younger population. Sometimes
they use it in casual conversation and that adds more to the fact that it could
be used in the professional field, but it can’t.
These issues are mostly caused by teenagers.
In the professional field are times where these people need
to learn the correct way to email a professor, client, or boss and realize that
they have to separate their social lives. I feel that if people did not rely on
these abbreviations so much and limit them that this would no longer be a
problem. This is a problem because most of the time these abbreviations make
things so much easier to talk or text. But they will sometimes create problems
in a conversation. Some abbreviations are not known to everyone and therefore
not everyone knows what the other person is saying. Should you really have to
look up online or ask the person what does that mean? Abbreviations are supposed
to make things easier I thought?
One day these terms may become appropriate in the
professional world or even something a step down like emails to professors or
coworker because they are used so frequently, but that time is not now. It is
important to understand there is a difference between friends and education or
work. Most people know there is a difference but for that one person who does
not get the job s/he has been waiting to hear from, because of writing an
application the wrong way, could really affect someone, but in the end teach
them a lesson.
Everyone needs to learn how to become professional and
separate their two worlds apart, and that means to communicate with others the
appropriate way, no more G2G at the end of an email.
one of the most liberating moments in my life was when i decided to stop using capital letters in my ICQ messaging back in 1999. the world did not end. co-workers and friends still understood what i was typing.
ReplyDeletein 2005 i stopped worrying about corrceting minor speling mistakes and typos. as long as enoug of the word got through that the reader could figure out what i rlly meant, that was ok. no longer would i waste my tyme typing and the reader's time reading by going back and entering a second line with something like
* time
Mind you, I do capitalize and correct spelling mistakes when I'm writing email that is intended to be persuasive.
It's all about context.
Language evolves. You can't really avoid it. About 15 years ago, people would recite the old bit "ain't ain't a word and I ain't gonna say it." Now you can find official definitions for it,but you couldn't when I was a kid.
ReplyDeleteMy communications professor last semester jokingly asked the class how many of us knew that the word "though" had six letters in it. Only about half of us did (me included).
This can work both ways, unfortunately. I was emailed by a potential employer not long ago who signed with "ttfn," and it threw me for a bit of a loop. I assume that in the not-too-distant future, professionals are going to begin using these acronyms as a more regular thing. I presume they academic community is less likely to do so, simply out of the nature of the people involved.