It is well known that defenders of the proper use of the English language are concerned about the effects of communicating via the Internet. In particular, they are divided on the impact of the Twitter trend. Those favoring concise writing believe that long-winded writers will learn to express themselves clearly in well-written short bursts. But others decry the attempt by some tweeters to “squeeze a short novel” into 140 characters through the use of mashed grammar, creative misspelling, and a plethora of awkward abbreviations.

As a champion of good writing I am sympathetic to the latter group. Yet a glance into history yields some interesting precursors to the tweeting phenomenon.

Keep It Short

With the advent of telegraphy, telegrams were used for both business and personal communications. Senders of telegrams were encouraged by Western Union to say it all in ten words or fewer. The cost of sending one word or ten words was identical, causing many senders to labor mightily to condense their message into exactly ten words. Beyond ten, a per-word charge was levied. Some senders, it is said, mistakenly believed that ten words was the maximum permitted in a telegram.

Those in the know took advantage of ways to reduce word count. Articles (a, an, the) and pronouns (especially I and we) were often found to be expendable with no harm to the meaning. Journalists reporting by cable might carry the technique to extremes. Here is one dispatch, posed as an example in a booklet published in 1928 on how to write telegrams: “Enemy unmet unseen account entanglements upthrown night.” Translated at the newspaper office, it would become “The enemy has not yet been met or even seen on account of the entanglements thrown up during the night.”

Since marks of punctuation counted as additional words, they were frequently omitted. However, to avoid misinterpretations, the word “stop” could be used to identify the end of a sentence.

Contrary to the general encouragement by telegraph companies to condense messages, a concern for accuracy and avoidance of transmission errors prompted them to urge senders to use words to designate numbers, as in “fifteenth” instead of “15th.” Surprisingly, this practice, while increasing character count, reduced word count, as 15th counted as three words: 1, 5, and th. Likewise, spelling out “one million” would avoid the chance that a zero might be added or dropped from the transmission of 1 000 000. It also saved five costly “words,” as each digit counted as one word.

Enter the Ham

Early amateur radio operators, sending in CW using Morse Code, adopted many of the shortcuts of the telegraphers and added others of their own. They developed both technical and non-technical abbreviations. Among the former: TX for transmitter, RCVR for receiver, LW for long-wire antenna, and USB for upper sideband. Among the non-technical abbreviations: PSE (please), TNX (thanks), GB (goodbye), XYL (wife), and 73 (best regards). Also, HV (have), NR (near), MNI (many), and WUD (would).

As is the case with many of today’s technical and computerese acronyms and abbreviations, the meaning of certain of the amateur radio abbreviations depended upon context. R, for example, could mean “are,” “received as transmitted,” or could indicate a decimal point.

Hams soon adopted OM (Old Man) as a friendly appellation for one another. When a few female operators came on the scene, the male operators wisely chose YL (Young Lady) to address them. Iris Hays remained active on HF and UHF bands at age 95. She was still a YL.

Many of the abbreviations had been devised when radio amateurs communicated via CW transmission, and several of those were retained as they shifted to voice transmission. One of the many Q codes used in radio communication is QSL, meaning either “Did you receive my transmission?” or “I confirm receipt of your transmission.” Operators exchange QSL cards to confirm two-way contact between their stations. A typical message (either printed or hand-written) on a QSL card might be “TNX OM FER QSO PSE QSL 73,” meaning “Thanks, Old Man, for the QSO (contact). Please send me a QSL (confirmation) card. Best regards.” (Yes, they do use FER instead of FOR!)

Internet Abbreviations

The expansive uses of the Internet have driven the proliferation of abbreviations far beyond those developed by telegraphers and radio amateurs. Yet contemporary tweeters may be surprised to discover that many of those in use today are identical to or direct descendants of those found in commercial telegraph code books of the mid-1870s to the early 1900s, or from those developed by radio amateurs. Among the latter are B4, BTW, CU, cuz, enuf, and gud. Admittedly, some of the abbreviations in use by today’s 24/7 onliners are less friendly, acerbic, or, some might say, absolutely insulting.

In any event, English professors are unlikely to find their hearts gladdened by the burgeoning list of available language compression techniques. Thus far, however, many tweeters are writing their messages using real English words, following, perhaps, a trend set by the six-word memoirs fad begun in 2006. Yet I suspect that the Twitter world will soon be overrun with creatively crunched messages. U no wht I mn?

Resources

Ross, N.E., How to Write Telegrams Properly, Booklet, 1928.
http://www.telegraph-office.com/pages/telegram.html

Gregory, D., and Y. Sahre, Hello World: A Life in Ham Radio, Princeton Architectural Press, 2003.

American Radio Relay League (AARL). http://www.arrl.org

Ham Gallery QSL Museum. http://hamgallery.com/qsl/

Fershleiser, R., and L. Smith (Eds.), Six-word Memoirs: Not Quite What I Was Planning, Harper, 2008.

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