topic Re: A plea for full words in BreakPoint

A plea for full words

smercurio_fc — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:46:12 GMT

I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for this, like "lighten up!', or "look who got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning", or "what a prude", or "who elected him grammar Nazi", or "what difference does it make if the point is made?", or "you must also not like ain't", or ...

But I'm still going to say it anyway...

<START of soapbox>

u -> you
r -> are
b -> be
getn -> getting
ur -> your

etc...

Thank you.

<END of soapbox>

Re: A plea for full words

JeffOverton — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:02:22 GMT

For the record, I still maintain that "ain't" isn't a word. The apostrophe means it's a negative contraction, so what are the two words?

Re: A plea for full words

smercurio_fc — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:12:42 GMT

Apparently, quite a few ...

Re: A plea for full words

JeffOverton — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:14:05 GMT

I would contend that all those potential expansions already have their own contractions

Re: A plea for full words

smercurio_fc — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:20:30 GMT

Well, I'll leave that debate for another thread...

Re: A plea for full words

JeffOverton — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:21:39 GMT

Haha, getting back on track here, are these people posting from their cell phones? How much longer does it take to type "you" than "u"?

Re: A plea for full words

smercurio_fc — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:39:10 GMT

Don't know.

But I want to clarify/stress that I have nothing against these shortened versions. I just think that on these NI forums they just don't seem... I don't know... right. It's not like the NI forums are really social forums (with the notable exception of this one). They're technical forums where professionals post and ask questions, and these shortened versions seem well, ... less professional to me. Perhaps it's the history of how these shortened version came to be, giving them an attribute that some interpret that way .

But then, I'm just a user here, and I don't speak for NI or anybody else, nor am I asking NI to step in (or think they really need to). I'm just offering an opinion. People can take it or leave it. I'm not going to hold anything against anybody for speaking the way they want to speak. Thankfully, the US is still (mostly) a free country.

Re: A plea for full words

altenbach — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:46:37 GMT

Don't forget a/c. 😄

Re: A plea for full words

PhillipBrooks — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:31:29 GMT

<slang>u r b'n hrsh dood! dgypiab; i m here 4 hlp from teh l337 dawg</slang>

Translate here at http://www.noslang.com/index.php

I agree. Some of this started as a way of cutting down on the amount of keying and the size of text messages sent via cell phone, but please.... The NI forums are not a college hang out or dating site and you're almost certainly not reading or posting to the forums from a cell phone.

I generally allow one or two of these to pass, but I simply ignore posts where they are overused.

Its almost a guarantee that the shorthand you've sited comes from someone that hasn't taken the time to learn the tools or tried to solve their own problem and now is in such a hurry that they can't take the time to use complete words to ask for help. (basically lazy, twice-over!).

Some instances come from those who speak English as a second language, and I forgive these easily.

I guess its simple; "let the h4xrs & l337s hlp teh lzrs do hwk".

With respect to "ain't"; well...

I ain't goin' there!

Message Edited by Phillip Brooks on 07-25-2008 02:31 PM

Re: A plea for full words

Ray.R — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:33:18 GMT

we never did find out what is a/c, did we.

or in proper English.

we ain't not nowin' whadda heck is 'n a/c?

did I get that one right? not being an Anglophone... 😉

Re: A plea for full words

TCPlomp — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 09:38:17 GMT

Smercurio,

I'm with you.
But the problem solves itself (from my point of view).
If I see such a post I'm not so eager to answer.

Some of the acronyms are not well know throughout the world.
What means w/ ??? (on LAVA, LAVA)

Ton

Re: A plea for full words

Ray.R — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 12:43:27 GMT

w/ = with

Typically used as a shortcut to say with

Ex: The SW came w/drivers = The SW came with drivers

Re: A plea for full words

tst — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 18:21:50 GMT

I also noticed that this often comes from people who have ESL (acronyms, yeah! ). As such, I often tend to relatively forgive it, but I agree that it generally has no place here and that people should make the effort to respect their audience and at least try to write properly.

Re: A plea for full words

Ray.R — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:12:16 GMT

When we see that, we should all politely reply that they should use full words because we cannot understand the gibbersish.. 😉

Re: A plea for full words

muks — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 10:27:41 GMT

w/o   - Without

i/o    -    input output

brb   -   be right back

4       - for

Re: A plea for full words

Graziano — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:26:30 GMT

Hi
smercurio, I'm with you too. mainly because for a non native speaking, these acronyms are LESS legible than plain english, even if they're legible.

Yes, it saves keyboard hits, but my brain (which has of course poor resources...) has to add a layer to translate: slang --> english --> italian. So please, write it all down

graziano

Re: A plea for full words

tst — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:26:43 GMT

We should differentiate between using acronyms which are relatively standard (like BTW, OTOH, FWIW, etc.) and writing things like "4, i, u, plz", etc.

The first one can be annoying, but is standard and can be solved with a simple Google search and if you happen to have a program like Babylon I'm sure there are dictionaries for this.
The second one is just annoying. It doesn't make the posts any harder to read in itself, but it's appropriate in a chat, not in a forum like this.

FWIW, I'll try to use less acronyms.

Re: A plea for full words

muks — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:37:56 GMT

We should differentiate between using acronyms which are relatively standard (like BTW, OTOH, FWIW, etc.)

BTW - by the way the other two i have no idea.......

Re: A plea for full words

Graziano — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:47:14 GMT

FWIW

Re: A plea for full words

tst — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:11:38 GMT

muks wrote:

the other two i have no idea.......

My point was that if you don't know you can simply do a Google search. I had to do this myself more than once (although I often find it more fun to figure out the meaning of the acronym on my own )