Special Guest Article
by The TrackSuit CEO
The title is a reference to those “lolcats” from the impossibly popular I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?. Yesterday Graywolf’s SEO Blog did a post entitled: Wikipedia I’m in Ur Index Rulin’ Ur Serpz which was his own reference to these ungrammatical, speech-impeded felines. I am disappointed in myself for giving these folks any link love. I am also disappointed in Hunter and Associates for publishing this as a guest post, given their unbending loyalty to proper grammar, not to mention proper spelling. But that’s the point I’d like to make, these lovable fur balls are winning our hearts over to deplorable written communication. And if we’re not careful, these habits will find their way into our verbal communication as well. But I shouldn’t blame the lolcats, they’re most likely just a product of our texting/emailing shortcuts and abbreviations.
I worked at a well know computer company (whose name we must never mention) years ago and I got so fed up with their Instant Messaging shorthand that I could hardly stand it. I would thank a superior for some information, some favor, and I would get an email back with nothing in the body but “np”. I guess that’s supposed to be short for “no problem” but, come on! We’re not texting on our non-blackberry cell phones here, you’re sitting in front of a computer with a full keyboard. Just type the words “no problem”!
I was reminded of Hemingway’s “pop top” beer can protest. When they started making beer cans with the easy-to-open pop tops he was disgusted with this shortcut. He saw it as completely unnecessary and in protest he would flip the can over and open it with his trusty can opener. So when faced with endless acronyms and abbreviations what did the TrackSuit CEO do? He coined the phrase “counterproductive acronyms” and he went to work.
Here is an example:
RandomChatFriend: got the link ty
TrackSuitCEO: NP (No problem)
See, it actually took me longer to type that out than it would have without using the acronym. I would really like to see this take off as people get more and more fed up with endless shortcuts and just plain laziness.
I’d love to see some of your “counterproductive acronyms” in the comments. Or even better, maybe you could post some pictures of adorable animals with impeccable grammar! And the next time someone tries to steal an extra nanosecond by typing the initials of their sentences, then steal it back by giving them a really long acronym and it’s explanation. Counter productivity as protest against the erosion of language.
