Speaking in Tongue

Have you ever been repelled by communication with people or stopped reading content due to the overuse of acronyms which mean nothing to you? In a former life, when I took a position in a Honeywell division that had a lot of specialized language, I was impressed, and will never forget, the pamphlet that they gave me at employee orientation to help me expand their frequently used acronyms. It wasn’t like I was going on vacation in a foreign country or anything!

It is true that instant messaging and technology have introduced a lot of new words and acronyms into our vocabularies over the course of the last few decades. When email was new, I recall how spell checkers challenged my usage of the word messaging. (Their suggested revision was massaging, which always caused me to chuckle and think of a Pink Panther movie skit with Peter Sellers.) Being at the forefront of early email adoption, I was involved with think-tank groups who explored the casual nature of email communications in business. People like me, who are moderately obsessed with proper language, railed at the prevelence of shorthand that seemed to be “dumbing down” written communications but, in a recent National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast, a panelist remarked that language shorthand used in written communication was centuries old and provided several examples.

In this instance, the business person and prospective client are communicating well but the point is that your written and spoken communications should not leave your audience struggling to understand. I’ve learned that NOT understanding something can cause people to stop listening or reading because their minds wander off as they try to imagine what what they don’t know. That isn’t the effect you want to create, is it?

I’d like to provide an example for you. If you are writing an atricle about online marketing and use the abbreviation CPA, you should immediately expand the acronym by either putting the phrase Cost Per Action in parentheses or vice-versa. This will keep their attention from getting stuck on what they may not know.

During these days of short-attention span, information overload, and constrained time, isn’t it important that you make things easier for your followers to understand? Statistically, you have less than 30 seconds for them to make up their mind whether or not they are interested enough to stay on your website. Thus, there is no sense in communicating in a way that might be frustrating for them because you are speaking in a foreign language. As the communicator, you know what the acronym means. If you don’t, you really ought to.

And while I’m pondering one of my favorite subjects, launguage and words, I have another question. Why in the world would anyone feel compelled to abbreviate the word June to Jun? Sheesh!

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