[BangPypers] python

[Anand Balachandran Pillai]

On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 10:23 AM, Sriram Narayanan <sriramnrn at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 9:57 AM, Kenneth Gonsalves <lawgon at au-kbc.org> wrote:
>> On Saturday 10 Jan 2009 12:50:43 am Sreekanth B wrote:
>>> what u said may not be really true.... there are thousands out there
>>> in France and Germany who cannot even write a sentence in English;-)
>>
>> but if they did, they would spell 'you' as 'you' and not as 'u'
>
> My +1 to SMS lingo not really being "cool" when it comes to communication.
>
> Sreekanth, you may not know this, but though it's accepted culture to
> use "plz" and "u" and "thx" in certain communities (e.g. amongst
> friends), a lot of customers world wide as well as tech folks do not
> really use such language. Even if you do use shortened words, it's not
>  considered exciting or cool or acceptable.
>
> Just imagine the following scenario : You write an informative mail to
> your customer, and that person now needs to forward this mail to some
> other people. These people would be his colleagues, other vendors, or
> even his own customers. Given that SMS lingo is not actually accepted
> worldwide and often considered unprofessional, your customer would be
> hesitant to forward your email. This is because he would be aware that
> other people's attention would be drawn to your SMS-style shortened
> words, and you'd be considered unprofessional. Further, this will also
> reflect on your customer. This is because others will now wonder about
> how professional he is if he's dealing with a person who cannot even
> write a proper email. Note: "proper" here is what they consider
> proper.
>
> I'm writing the above based on my own observations at work. I also
> closely interact with the trainers at our company who receive inputs
> from global management on what practices to inform our people about.

I agree with Kenneth 100%. Quick communication through SMS and chat
has made the use of abbreviations widespread. Unfortunately, there is
a tendency to use them in contexts where a more formal language is
preferred.

For example, if you are writing an internal company email to your manager,
and ending it with "thx, rgds", you are doing yourself a disfavor. It might be
okay to do so with colleagues occasionally, but it is good practice to
write in full, proper English without resorting to informal abbreviations when
writing professional emails and also within your company too.

The other downside of this, is that abuse of short-forms actually destroys
your writing skills. Once you get to IMHO, BTW, CU and the like, your
brain is wired to resort to the short-forms instead of typing out the words
in full.

IMHO (irony intended), this is a disservice to the language and is a not
a good practice to follow. Sure, stick to your abbreviations in SMS, chat
and /., but try to write good English without abusing short-forms in other
channels of Internet communication.


>
> Your being non-english medium educated has no bearing on your using
> shortened words. Lots of English-medium educated people us such words
> too.

I studied in an "English Medium" school throughout my 10 years of schooling.
However, apart from picking up formal English language lessons, it did
nothing to help me to use English as a daily medium of communication because
we always used to talk in the mother tongue at school.

Only after I went to college for my professional studies, did I pick up
the skills of speaking and writing good English. That too towards the end of
the course, when I was giving my GRE and also appearing for campus
interviews, when theses skills would actually decide your career and
the rest of your life.

>
>>
>> --
>> regards
>> Kenneth Gonsalves
>> Associate
>> NRC-FOSS
>> http://nrcfosshelpline.in/web/
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Regards

-- 
-Anand