Whilst reading reviews of hotels and holidays online over the weekend I became irritated by what I consider pointless abreviatons. Why write 'gr8 hotel' when you could put 'The hotel we stayed in (name of hotel) was great, it was clean and tidy, the pool was never too busy, the food was varied, tasty and plentiful, we slept well in the comfortable bed and really liked the excellent ensuite facilities.' - the first example is rubbish, it tells you nothing in a really poor manner, the second example, well, that's a review, clear and simple with good information. Why wouldn't you use the latter? If you want to get a point across, it will always be better in good plain English.
This shortening of letters started in the early days of the internet, I was there and yes, I used abreviations. It was needed then, we had dial up modems with very slow speeds and as long as you were connected you were paying by the minute and using up the phone line. Getting your message across quickly was important and this led to the development of the Smiley and TLA's such as LOL and BRB.
These things are now common in SMS messaging and Twitter although there is no real need as both have a 140 character limit, usually more than enough for the average ten or so word message. Gr8 really isn't great and I'm sure mates are better than m8's. I was tempted to refer to this trend as childish but in my experience it's not kids that do this, it's people who really should know better. English always worked well before you got a mobile phone, if you try it, you'll find it still does and people will thank you for it.
English, the most widely used language in the world, sometimes confusing, sometimes accidently funny, always beautiful when used properly. Please don't abuse it, there really is no need.
Neil
brb ;-)
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