We live in an SMS world nowadays. Everywhere you go you’ll see people on their phones – not making calls, but texting.
With the popularity of texting (and chatting) it is no wonder that initialism has boomed. If you’re wondering what initialism means it is simply abbreviating phrases by using the first letter of each word on the phrase.
Initialism is not a bad thing because it serves its purpose – makes texting and chatting really faster. (Though I’m pretty sure spelling teachers all over the world hate it. People misspell words often enough without developing bad habits from initialism and utterly random abbreviations!) When it comes to blogging I do have to side with the educators and discourage its use.
One of the things you never want your blog to be is unreadable. Initialisms may be easy to understand for the initiated but really even I get lost with some of the things I see. LOL (laugh out loud) and WTF (I don’t need to spell this one out) is all I really understand. You have to assume that your readers are as “illiterate” as I am when it comes to such abbreviations. If you must use initialisms make sure you explain it. Sounds corny, but remember witticisms are no good if there’s no one to understand you.
Oh and yeah – DUH is not an initialism… ^_^
Originally posted on January 30, 2010 @ 6:43 am
