Styles of the Long and Short Form

Writing about the long form and short form of online communication in a blog seems appropriate to me.  I would think all of us in an electronic communications class have all sorts of experience with each.  I have taken other online classes that required to write short responses to different topics/questions, so writing a 400-word blog on a weekly basis is just par for the course.  Although condensing language is now heavily part of modern culture, I am still a part of the population that writes entire sentences when texting/messaging.  Years ago when texting became the rage, I did dabble in a few shortened forms of communication like changing ‘you’ to ‘u’ and still one of my favorites, using ‘ur’ instead of ‘you’re.’  I have to admit, I no longer engage in this lazy pop communication.  All my texts come in complete sentences and even include proper punctuation when appropriate.  I like to keep these skills up to date and remembered.  I guess I feel like I am giving proper English the props it deserves.  Perhaps I am just a language snob.  That being said, I can’t say I look down on others who prefer a shortened form for electronic tet-e-tet and group correspondence.  Either way, I will dive in to whatever this class would prefer us to all practice and master.

Blogging is great!  I don’t mind putting my thoughts and ideas out there for all you to read.  I would say I am a shy person when I first meet people, but that eventually wears off for my own enjoyed comfort of making new friends.  I like the idea that blogging uses descriptive language.  At least that’s some of what I got out of some of our assigned reading.  ‘Be concise’ I believe was one of the suggestions.  I have no mastery of the English language to say I know all the big words, but once in awhile I can come off as being somewhat of a student of language.  As suggested by the book, I will keep my blogs as short and to the point as possible without going off on too many tangents.

Twitter.  Oh Twitter you still baffle me a bit.  I have not used it until I signed up for it yesterday.  I am not a society hermit, so I am aware of its use, and I have seen examples on televised talk shows.  Still, I was not even sure what a hashtag was until this last week.  I like that our class can engage with each other with short messages with this platform.  I read the Twitter chapters, and I am sure I will go back and reread them just to get a better understanding of its use.  For me, ‘140 Characters’ was a bit confusing.  Maybe I should read the preface and then go back and reread chapters one, two, and three.  For now, watch me try my best and feel free to laugh at my confusion; no scoffing please.  Still a work in progress.

See twitter feed for picture reference!