Pntlss abrvtn

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 ;-)

Why Bashed?

When I used to play on-line games, Bashed was my gamer name. I still use this name on various places around the internet. I have other more specific blogs about my photography and Cambridge weight plan, including facebook pages so I was just going to ditch this blog but have decided to keep it and use the Bashed moniker to represent my grumpier side. So 'Bashed', in this instance is about how life sometimes Bashes me around, or a slightly exaggerated version of it anyway. So I'm going to grumble here, just grumble and moan about everything and anything to get it off my chest. It doesn't really matter if it gets read or not, I very much doubt that many will find my grumbles interesting enough to stop by more than once but I don't really care, moaning is good for you. Bashed is also a reference to being a 'Rail enthusiast' or Train spotter as I prefer to say, so I will continue to blog about my occasional forays into the world of trains too. So there you have it, that's why I'm 'Bashed'

Rant!

I don't 'blog' often, I just don't have the time or the will to bother mostly but my recent dealing with Expedia pissed me off so much...

The Background.

We booked a few days in New York with friends for spring next year. One of our flights [the outbound] was cancelled, we don't know why, that's just the way it is. Obviously we had to do something because we need to go in order to come back. I called Expedia and waited the required 24 minutes for an answer from an English speaking person who was ready to take my order, once it became clear that I'd already paid and just needed to sort out the new flight time, well, I was put through to the 'we've already got his money, just annoy the fuck out of him 'til he hangs up department', which it seems is based in Bangladesh. This involves someone speaking and occasionally shouting at you down the phone with a comedy 5 second satellite delay for added annoyance.

Me - 'I want to change the flight 'cos you cancelled it.'

Ryan - [yes really, that's what he said, it's a popular Asian name.] Mumble mumble, hello.. sir can you hear me?

Me - Yes, I can hear you [I have no idea what you are saying but I CAN hear you]

Ryan - OK, mumble mumble, change mumble mumble flight to Amsterdam mum - Me NO! Ryan- continues, I can do that for you now sir mumble mumble.

Me - [Staying blissfully calm] No, no, no, New York, we are going to New York, it's in the USA.

Ryan - yes, mumble mumble, put you on hold... [cue very annoying tune on 10 second loop]

After 24 minutes...

'Hello sir my name is Jenny, how can I help you?'

Me - [Oh thank fuck] Hi, Jenny, how are you?

Jenny - Hello, can you hear me?

Me - Yes, that's why I just said hello and asked you how you are y'see.

Jenny - Mumble mumble

Me - Oh Fuck!


OK, you get the picture, that went on for 2 hours the first day then my wife had a go and lasted another hour. Our friends also made calls and went through the same telephonic hell. So, today our friends contact me and tell us they have had success and managed to get everything changed and asked them to call me to arrange the same for us. I waited an hour, nobody called so I heroically picked up the phone and with a plastic smile glued to my face, I called them again.

They answered straight away and it was, as far as I could tell, a native, a genuine English speaker, a slight accent but I understood him perfectly, my lucky day. 'I'll just put you through to the relevant department', 'OK' I said, barely hiding the tremble in my voice...

...after 24 minutes 'James' answered the phone, James, unfortunately, was from the 'we've already got his money, just annoy the fuck out of him 'til he hangs up department', he's very good at his job.

I emailed Expedia - I've yet to receive an answer.

/rant


UPDATE: I received a reply from Syed, I have to wonder if that's an English person pretending to be an Asian, anyway, he told me he can't deal with me because it's got nothing to do with me as I'm only the one who's actually flying and has wasted so much of this miserable week trying to reorganise the flight that they cancelled. Obviously, I'm just not involved enough for him to speak to.
I've replied from the other email address to confirm that he can in fact deal with this disinterested party after all.

Can anyone hear steam?

Update 2: Sorted. Wife got home, we made another call. Got a nice apologetic chap called Stephen who decided to sort it out himself, it wasn't easy because of the way the system works but he did it. Thanks Stephen. I wish we had spoken to him first. Why does it have to be so hard?