The Use of Initials

[Gabriel-Ernest]

You're such a big girl sometimes . . .
Ah well; better than being “a big girl’s blouse” I suppose!

I think it is absolutely clear that these initialisms and emoticons have developed to give email and SMS the 'body language' they otherwise lack. It's bad enough being misunderstood on posts here but at work it can be disastrous.
The lack of such things does not seem to have been too much of a problem for the letter-writers of previous centuries. Why now, do you think?

>I'm afraid not; only a "pita".
I think we can all work that one out. ROFL
Sorry; no I can’t. Or ROFL either (Run Out of Fuel am Landing? cqtm). I’ll only allow a few moments to decipher the meaning, and if a light hasn’t come on then I give up. Life is awfully short, you know. (And getting shorter.) Can we have footnotes for the un-initiated?

And how about a smiley with its tongue in its cheek; I’d use that a lot.

G-E.

[Dave]

I think ROFL = "rolling on the floor laughing," probably a notch up from LOL. Here's the image:

And here's the code (save for future?):[img]http://images.bravenet.com/common/images/smilies/rotfl.gif[/img]

[Couldn't locate a 'tongue-in-cheek']

[Dave M]

I think that abbreviations (where they'll be recognised) are useful.

However, G-E makes two points with which I agree strongly:

I don't like to see abbreviations where the result is not much abbreviated, but is much mystified.

I'm starting to get really annoyed (or anyway to regard the writer as pathetic) when I see the over-inflated references to laughter. Yes, I have "rolled on the floor laughing" - and I can remember both occasions, in my not-quite 54 years! When I get some serial e-mail from a friend, recommending that I scroll down to see something humorous, I simply do not believe the "tears rolling from eyes" or floor-rolling references. If the picture, or story, is humorous, let me read it! Don't TELL me what to think, and don't bring in this emotional hyper-inflation!

[Twoddle]

Dave M, your reference to humorous e-mails that instruct you to be amused leads me, tangentially, to another of my pet hates: being told what I'll find funny. E-mails are a classic example: "You'll love this one"; "This is really funny!!!!!!!!", and so on. When I receive one of those I'm automatically predisposed to find it unamusing, so the command to find it diverting becomes entirely counter-productive.

[Paul Doherty]

My spam filter regards anything with three or more consecutive exclamation marks in the subject as deeply suspicious, and assumes I won't want to see it. It's never been wrong yet.

[Pete]

Jun 29, 2008 15:38:10 GMT Gabriel-Ernest said:

You're such a big girl sometimes . . .
Ah well; better than being “a big girl’s blouse” I suppose!

I think it is absolutely clear that these initialisms and emoticons have developed to give email and SMS the 'body language' they otherwise lack. It's bad enough being misunderstood on posts here but at work it can be disastrous.
The lack of such things does not seem to have been too much of a problem for the letter-writers of previous centuries. Why now, do you think?

>I'm afraid not; only a "pita".
I think we can all work that one out. ROFL
Sorry; no I can’t. Or ROFL either (Run Out of Fuel am Landing? cqtm). I’ll only allow a few moments to decipher the meaning, and if a light hasn’t come on then I give up. Life is awfully short, you know. (And getting shorter.) Can we have footnotes for the un-initiated?

And how about a smiley with its tongue in its cheek; I’d use that a lot.

G-E.

G-E, sorry. PITA is pain in the ass.

[Pete]

Jun 29, 2008 15:38:10 GMT Gabriel-Ernest said:

The lack of such things does not seem to have been too much of a problem for the letter-writers of previous centuries. Why now, do you think?

I think the point is that letter-writing is a much more formal affair, with a formal style of English much less prone to misunderstanding. In contrast, people seem to text and email as if they were speaking, not writing a letter. So word use is less formal but not tempered by the body language and intonation of actual speech.

[Paul Doherty]

Jun 29, 2008 19:49:04 GMT Pete said:

... people seem to text and email as if they were speaking, not writing a letter.

I think, in fact, it's a third style of communication. No-one would actually say "pita" or "rofl", would they?

I think you could consider replication, interaction, independence, external cues.

Writing:
1. Replication: high - written once, read many times.
2. Interaction: none - no chance (on either side) to verify understanding.
3. Independence: high - reading proceeds at own pace, independent of writing, so speed of generation is unimportant.
4. External cues: none.

So it's worthwhile for the writer to expend effort to "get it right" and to minimise ambiguity and reader effort.

Conversation:
1. Replication: low - spoken once, heard once
2. Interaction: high - plenty of chances for speaker to check he/she is being understood, and for listener to signal understanding or lack of it.
3. Independence: none - listening proceeds at same pace as speaking, so speed of generation is very important.
4. External cues: many (intonation, pauses, body language, volume, hand-movements, facial expression, shrugging, etc).

So it's worthwhile for the speaker to say something quickly rather than correctly -- understanding will emerge through interaction.

A lecture or radio talk (e.g a news bulletin) is spoken but is more like writing in its style:
1. Replication: high
2. Interaction: none
3. Independence: little (possibly listeners can pause playback).
4. External cues: none

Which makes it more like writing than conversation, and indeed such things are often written before being read out.

Text, e-mail, and IM (e.g. msn):
1: Replication: low.
2. Interaction: medium.
3. Independence: medium (text typically more independent than msn) .
4. External cues: few.

So it's not much like either conversation or writing. You'd expect its own conventions to evolve, and they are.

Boards (like this one) are different again:
1. Replication: medium.
2. Interaction medium to low.
3. Independence: medium to high.
4. External cues: few.

More like writing than msn or text are.

Of course, each medium has other factors at work. When people mostly paid per text, the 160-character limit was important and saying things in as few characters as possible was vital.