Business Pet Peeve

[bjarvis]

Lest there be any confusion on this point, let me be clear: the next time anyone sends me business correspondence which uses "sup" as a greeting, "u" as a pronoun and ends questions about location with "at," I will publish that text for public ridicule.

I have some tolerance for abbreviations in text messages between mobile devices, but none whatsoever for full-length emails, online documentation or written correspondence. We're supposed to be educated professionals in real-world business, not pre-teens playing "The Sims" online with your bffs.

Thank you.

I will now finish my day by practicing yelling at kids to get off my lawn and complaining about how young whippersnappers drive too fast.

Comments

[thaaang.livejournal.com]

I have to disagree with you about the 'ending a sentence with a preposition' beef. From what I understand it comes from Strunk and White, and that book really isn't the Bible it's made out to be. They ended sentences with prepositions in the book, even though they said it was naughty.

And it often flows better to end with a preposition than the tortured workarounds people employ to avoid breaking the rule. Call me illiterate if you must, but I'm a supporter of ending sentences with prepositions when that's what you gotta do.

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

as sir winston churchill said, of [not] ending sentences with a preposition:

That is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put

using "sup" as a salutation, or "u" as a pronoun, are indeed heinous.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I'm not especially defensive about not ending a sentence with a preposition in general. I can understand using sentence structure such as "The things I put up with!" or such. The truly grammar-religious may claim you're going to hell, but I wouldn't give it a second thought.

That said, there's something unforgivably ghetto-trash --in a bad way-- about asking "Where you at?" instead of "Where are you?" or "Where is the paper at?" instead of "Where is the paper?" It grates on my ears like fingernails on a chalkboard. It's like they don't understand even understand what the words are that they're speaking.

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

the real problem with where you at? is not a terminal "at", the problem is the absence of a verb.