Obvi I am tired of abbrevs.

I just read the article on PR Daily titled “OMG! More Text Speak Creeping Into Business Communications” – detailing the usage of such acronyms as LOL in daily business talk. Do you find those popular abbreviations or “tweeting lingo” creeping into your conversations at work or with colleagues?

I think a lot of it depends on the ages of the people in your business and the type of industry you work in. Sometimes I even find myself thinking in ‘abbrevs’ (see what did I tell you?) and when I say LOL out loud in normal conversation… those are moments I try to forget. I mean honestly, how lazy have we become that we can’t say “obviously” and instead we prefer “OBVI!” ? Yes, that sounds intelligent.

This brings me to my next point: I think there needs to be different fonts for different emotions. For example, when some is using sarcasm or telling joke, instead of having to write *sarcasm* or “Note: THAT WAS A JOKE!” people would just know what was meant by the font used. This is important when you are communicating with someone via technology for the first few times, since the person on the other end might just think you are rude or possibly crazy.

I almost understand why people need to add LOL to a message or an idea… but mostly it just makes you seem insecure about what you are saying. It’s like when somebody laughs after everything they say, they are not sure if they will be taken seriously so they have to laugh, just in case everybody else does too. Then folks are laughing with them instead of laughing at them. It ends up being, well, awkward (awk.) If you have an idea say it loud and say it proud, no LOL needed.

My advice, just as the article in PR Daily mentioned, is to avoid abbreviations in your daily work routine; you want people to take you and your work seriously and not be seen as a joke. I personally try to avoid them unless I really know the other person quite well. My rule of thumb is, if you’re typing at a computer, there really is no need to abbreviate. It takes less than a second to type out the words “with”, “please”, “because”, “thank you” and the like. However, if you are typing from your phone or some other device, I think it is fine as long as you aren’t writing a formal email. Typing from your phone makes you feel like you are texting and I always have to make sure I read my emails at least twice to make sure I didn’t write b/c or w/you – it becomes habit so you must always check (obvi!).

P.S. This is my rule of thumb for emails and general communications. Twitter, on the other hand, is a whole different ball game and I actually find it interesting how creative people can be when trying to fit their thoughts into 140 characters or less.