New feature I’m starting here on my blog. At the beginning of each week, I’m going to be posting a quick “tip of the week”. It’s going to be a short little “golden nugget” that you can immediately implement into your social repertoire.
Today’s tip is semi-obvious to a lot of people and yet I still see this happening every day:
Stop talking like a little kid lest you be treated like one.
This mainly applies to text-based communication (email/text messaging). I don’t care if your friends say “i kno” or “wat r you doing?” I’ve never heard of a single woman who finds that sexy. Even if the GIRL does it, you shouldn’t. If you want to use an ampersand (&) instead of the word “and”, then that’s fine. If you want to abbreviate long words (‘appt’ = ‘appointment’), or even use an “lol” sometimes, fine. But talking like a texting 13 year-old does nothing for you or your game. It actually hurts things. It makes people not take you seriously.
So to sum up, avoid all uses of abbreviations and formatting that are associated with teengers and kids.
A quick list of words and phrases to avoid (along with their meaning):
- “kno” (know)
- “wat” (what)
- becoz/coz (because)
- rite (write/right)
- Retarded abbreviations that accomplish nothing (l8ter, 2morrow, bout) Note: If you’re a short black guy who is known to say “whachu talkin’ bout, Willis?”, you are officially exempt from this rule)
- AnYthInG wRitTen LiKe ThIs
This gets progressively worse the older you are and/or the more formal the communication. (e.g. A 19 year old girl texting another 19 year old girl like this isn’t as damaging as a 50 year old writing like that on a resume.)
Safest option: Just speak like an adult..
Posted on April 12, 2010