Re: Tho (was: Blandness (was: Uusisuom's influences))

CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:
>
>Er...if I *didn't* use abbreviations I would *never* get some of my math
>lecture notes down.  "Group of automorphisms" gets *really* irritating
>when written out repeatedly.
Same here, i'm considering doing abbreviations in my Civilization and
Culture of Latin America Class because my professor goes fast and i often
never get all of the outline he has up for his presentations.
>
>Besides, people write notes for their own benefit, not yours.  As long as
>they're not taking notes for you, who cares?  I use a whole system of
>abbreviations plus hieroglyphic-inspired determinatives.  I don't expect
>anyone else to be able to use my notes, but I read them just fine, they
>save me from writer's cramp, and my profs speak too fast.  :-p  (The
>physics prof for general relativity, which my boyfriend is taking,
>apparently writes faster than c so far as anyone can tell....)
Exactly. Why should it bother you (david peterson) so much if you can
understand what's being said? Why should something be commonly accepted
before anyone adopts it? If that were the case, we'd never get common
contractions and abbreviations.

I will tell you though, sometimes at work i am forced to use contractions
and abbreviations when filling out official transcript forms at work (I
work at Admissions and Records for my university). I even have to *gasp*
use uncommonly accepted abbreviations if the name of a place the
transcript is being sent to is too long.

Abbreviations basically save my hand from writers cramp. I remember last
year I had to take the Graduate Writing Assessment Requirement for my
university (called the GWAR. It's used to determine if we are able to
write at the proper level for upperclassmen), and my hand cramped so much
as i wrote it out, because it was done all by hand.

Anyway, if abbreviations and contractions bother you so much, dont use
them. But dont keep telling us that it's wrong, or not proper to do so.
This medium (email) is informal, i doubt anyone here uses things like
"tho" when writing a formal paper (I know I don't, and i don't even use
things like "don't" or "i'm" when I do).