Written by Karen D. Swim
As if we had not tortured and twisted the American language enough, an entire new lexicon has arisen as a result of social media. Our language is now populated by pop culture colloquialisms, abbreviated text speak and social media-isms. Add industry jargon to the mix and you have a communication nightmare.
What Say You?
Me: Here in MI our local ABC station follows that practice, it’s great.
Twitter Friend: I’m new to twitter speak, what’s MI?
In the above exchange I used the standard postal abbreviation for Michigan – MI – assuming that I was being inclusive with my language choice. Think again. We have become so accustomed to strange abbreviations and new words on Twitter that MI could have stood for anything.
Another example:
Travis: I’ll work on the feed and get it corrected, thanks for your help.
Me: No problem, ping me when it’s fixed and I’ll add you to my reader.
Travis: Oh, I don’t use Ping yet but I know I should learn
Me: No, not Ping.fm the service, I meant email or IM me to let me know when it’s done
See how confusing our language has become. We have created a virtual tower of Babel where it’s a wonder that we are still able to carry on conversations. We are friending, tweeting, linking, plurking, kwipping, blogging, shouting, skyping and on occasion hitting each other on our cellies. No wonder, even Dutch words have taken on a familiarity for me of late. These days I am as comfortable with unfamiliar foreign languages as my native tongue of English.
Think Before you Speak or Text
Yes, your mother was right. I have stuck my foot in my mouth more times than I care to admit when I have not taken a moment to think before opening my big fat mouth. The removal of facial gestures and inflections makes communicating in writing even more hazardous. Pause before you hit the send button and make sure that your message will be read as intended.
So What Does That Have to Do with The Tea In China?
Now more than ever it is important to strive for clear communication. It is easier to have our words taken out of context, misunderstood or even unknowingly offend. Clear and simple language, free of jargon will foster understanding when communicating with a large and diverse audience.
Regional language and colloquial phrases are a wonderful way to add color to your communications but use them wisely. Phrases that are appropriate on one platform can be easily misunderstood on another.
I am going to make a greater effort to not be Misunderstood in MI, after all the whole point of social media is to communicate which implies being understood.
How do you manage our bourgeoning language? Do you have any personal practices or tips to share?
Anneyeong hasaeyo Andrew!
Your comment brought another realization to light. You are right our underlying tone does come through which is why it is not a good idea to actually send a communication if you are angry or tense. You may work not to reflect that but when read with a cooler head you may realize that your true tone was conveyed. In speech we can mask it with inflection, and facial gestures. Thanks Andrew! I’ll be more careful now. 🙂
Annyeong haseyo, Karen!
Fair point, Karen,
Even in writing, I feel that our underlying tone comes through somehow.
Not as much as in speech, but it does come through.
@ Alex, cheers for the old fogeys! LOL! My niece sends me a text every morning and it takes me FOREVER to respond! It is hysterical! I don’t have a phone built for texting because I don’t text and I have zero desire to read email on my phone thank you very much. 🙂
@Andrew, I have a dear friend who is Korean and she has taught me a few phrases. I was once her manager and when we worked in Korean areas of LA she would teach me to read the signs outside of the doctors’ offices – I loved that the words were pictures and it gives you a different appreciation for language. In whatever language we write we are creating pictures with our words. If we keep that in mind I believe that our intent (if not the exact words and phrases) will be apparent to our audience.
@Ulla, thank you for sharing that perspective. It’s interesting that we often feel more at home outside of our communities than within them. Like you Ulla, my online experience is deeply enriched by the global interactions. I treasure people like you, Alex, Joanna and Andrew and really often forget that you’re so far away. 🙂
Karen and dear all,
my experience is, that whenever I did not understand what was said or written, and I asked for the meaning I got nice answers and learnt a lot. I even made the experience that the way to communicate is much friendlier regarding English, Scottish, Australian and US-American people or better put: people writing and talking in English. There is such an easy going and friendly way, that I as a native German speaker have never felt not been a part of the community. In German web communities I often felt left out.
Just my 2cents,
Ulla
Karen,
Joanna’s thoughts sum it up very well – you need to know your audience, and that will determine which abbreviations you use.
Having taught English in Korea, and started learning Korean myself, I have really gained a much greater impression of the importance of keeping language simple. With the trend toward globalization these days, an increasing portion of recipients of our spoken and written words will be individuals for whom English is a second language.
In any speech or form of writing where the target audience may include non-native English speakers, keeping language simple and avoiding such abbreviations is critical. On the other hand, when writing only to close associates, I would not imagine that such abbreviations would cause a problem.
That’s why I don’t use txtspk on my cell (movil here in Spain) nor when twittering. I try to use complete sentences and full punctuation as well (when 140 characters lets me).
But I guess I’m just being an old fogey about all this new fangled technology…
@Brian, thanks! I agree it is a new age and we can’t fight it any more than we can fight that some people prefer reading books on a Kindle to turning pages. As you said, we can embrace it and as writers shine the guiding light.
@ Joanna, those are great points about being intentional. One of the things I love about the cross cultural interaction is “hearing” the different phrases we all use. As you say though we have to mind that we don’t make others feel excluded by “insider” talk although I would personally enjoy listening in on a conversation with the Scotswomen. 🙂
@Deb, you’re right and I am like everyone guilty of it. How often have I cited Charlie Brown or Pooh. On Twitter I think we have a bit more leeway but if I were writing to a broad audience I would offer references, explanations or consider not using American cultural references.
@Robert, LOL! I’d say “hunh?” Just kidding! One of the things I love about your posts and tweets is the language and you are so wonderful about incorporating explanations into your post that are as funny as the language. Don’t change, we’ll just append the dictionary. 🙂
@Brad, me too! I am no good at text speak too. I get really lost on everything except lol and ROFL. We’ll bungle along together!
@Friar! That is hysterical! Gosh the internet has ruined us I tell ya, ruined us!
Speaking of the internet, I was without service for about 5 hours today and was I happy? No! I felt cut off from mankind. That’s what I get for complaining about too much email and info overload. Never, never again!
In one of my old jobs, I disagreed with my boss and I emailed him to discuss it.
But the stupid server took the font and MADE IT BIGGER FOR PART OF THE EMAIL.
SO IT LOOKED LIKE I WAS YELLING AT HIM.
When I was not.
It put a strain on our work relationship for several weeks. We had a sit-down pow-wow and he finally explained why he was upset. When there wasn’t really a problem. It was the email glitch that caused it.
Argh.
Classical example of misunderstood communication.
This would never have happened before the Internet.
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Good grief! Now I have to learn yet ANOTHER word: “acronymability”?
I think my spell checker just exploded…
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Hi Karen, Forget jargon – I get tripped on on plain old words. Joanna pointed out that in the UK, cell phones are mobiles. She probably scratched her head trying to make out the meaning of one of my recent posts. But I love learning new words and expressions, so when in doubt, I ask. I echo Joanna’s sentiments there. Acronyms are more challenging. It took me about three years to get ROLF, and that’s pretty much the extent of my text messaging acronymability. I guess we have to keep on plugging and not pull out all our frog’s hair.
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I guess the bottom line, Karen, is this:
If I told you I was “feelin’ as fine as a frog’s hair – split three ways”, would you know what I meant? 😀
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Very good point! It’s like internal jargon … things WE know, and just assume that everybody we’re talking to knows, too … like referring to Muggles, or Yoda, or Dora the Explorer … things that specific groups of people automatically understand, but that not necessarily EVERYBODY gets.
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Hi Karen in MI!
As someone from the UK I don’t know the codes for the States, but through Twitter I’m learning. I suppose that would be what I’d add to this – that if you write with good intention (to share, to be friendly, to get to know people) your followers will ask you what you mean, which can lead to some wonderful conversations.
It’s only when the tone is clearly exclusive, like you’re talking to a group in the know (not you, I meant ‘people’) that the language becomes a barrier.
Joanna
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Karen. I like this post. Not as much for its utility, but for the nature of your point – not that we should abandon twitter-abbrev or txtspk, but that we should learn to speak them better.
So many writers think the language is being eroded, and are determined to stop it. And they’re falling hopelessly behind. It’s a new era of online interaction (if not communication as a whole)… all we can do is embrace it, and do it as well as possible.
Brian
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