February 20, 2007

plzzz dont wrt lk this plzz!

You know, I'm an old coot. I'm a relic of a bygone era. I'm so old my mama got her driving license on a dinosaur*

Lately, when I visit certain MBA forums (prospective students), I see lots of posts that have "SMSy" style of writing. For e.g.

"i wud like to study mba plzz sumone lemme kno' which univs btr than dat i rsrched. ne1 wid this info plz mail me. congo all u wid admits!"

If this is just a new style of writing in forums, then I have nothing to say. But if this is how the posters actually write english (trust me, I've seen mails with such words in actual official mail sent out to customers - and to me, that's an absolute no-no) then they really must make an effort to write properly. It's not that my english is perfect - grammar nazis probably already found 15 mistakes in this blog post, but that's not the point. We Indians are not very good at english, and I believe we need to make an effort where possible to improve it. In a global work place, communication skills are very important. That's it for my lecture.

nxt tim plz i wud not wan2 c such sentences thx evry1

-Ze Olde Coote.

*that was a rip-off from a song I heard somewhere. Not my original.

6 comments:

Neha@ papermagictwigs said...

hey, congrats on the INSEAD admit! came across your blog while looking for insead updates.. my husband is awaiting results..

i agree with you on the whole sms kinda writing.. it's quite sad yeah, but not so sure about your line about `we indians are very poor in english..' or something to that effect.. not quite sure how i feel about that! :) anyways, good luck!

kpmg said...

nice layout now. seems easier to look at.

will you continue to blog once term starts etc?

necromonger said...

neha - I said "we Indians are not 'very good'" not 'very poor' :) and I do believe that. In general a lot of us have pretty poor communication skills and the only way out is to practice. Good luck with your husband's INSEAD results!

wannabe - thanks about the layout. I plan to continue blogging until all my teeth fall of an' me eyes see no mo'!

Ravanan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ravanan said...

The SMS emails are getting on my nerves too. First I started to ignore those illegible ones since it was coming from my cousin, a student, about 15 years younger, then it came from a young friend, who is emplyed with an MNC. Then I started to take notice. In fact it was only then that I ralized that this is the SMS lingo !! I annoyed her enough with my request to never ever to use such language in mails to me that she stopped writing to me all together. Then the utter shock came when a friend who did the graduation with me wrote to me from Colorado in this new language !!, Now I am wondering whether I am slipping behind a generation or he is looking pitiful acting cool :-)

Will this new craze get a language status soon?

Neha@ papermagictwigs said...

alright.. so you gotta point there about the whole `smsing generation' there. :) thanks for dropping by..