Thread: Pay Back Time?
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Old 11-16-2012, 11:35 AM   #207
Marin
Scraping Paint
 
City: -
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 13,745
Quote:
Originally Posted by skipperdude View Post
The written word is becoming a lost thing in many ways.

At least let it die with dignity not hacked to pieces by lazy incompetent bums.

SD
A big part of my job is writing. I write scripts for videos that are shown to our executives, our board of directors, the CEOs and other executives of airlines, our engineers, and so on.

In my spare time, what little I have these days, I write books. So far I've had four published, seven if you count revised editions.

When I write for these audiences, I don't use "u" and "r" and all that.

But for casual writing on totally inconsequential media like Internet forums, I think keyboard shorthand is fine, particularly if one is using something that's challenging to write with fast, like a smart phone keypad.

But SD, I have some good news for you. I and my crew have international Blackberries issued by the company. So we are reachable at all times no matter where we are. As a result we spend a fair amount of time each day communicating with people in Seattle and the rest of the company. My videographer on this trip has a couple of kids-- one a sophomore in college and one a freshman in high school. According to them, "phone-speak" or whatever you want to call it, is falling out of favor. According to his kids, using it is no longer considered cool by the younger generations. It's becoming the mark of a dummy.

I haven't reached the point of using "u" and "r" and the rest of the phone-speak shorthand vocabulary when typing on the Blackberry or this iPad; I prefer to write out the words properly even though it takes a lot more time. But I can certainly appreciate the value in not having to type every letter but still have the meaning come through.

For things like Facebook, Twitter, and Internet forums, I think it's fine if a person wants to use it. I've never had any problem getting the meaning immediately and I don't find the use of phone-speak in this context at all annoying.
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