Another reason to loathe IM
March 24th, 2006 -- by Augie De Blieck Jr.
Merchants X out A, E, I, O, and U - The Boston Globe
From Motorola’s SLVR phone to Levi’s DLX jeans, merchants are unveiling new products with compact names that feature as few A, E, I, O, U’s as possible. Vowel free, apparently, connotes cool and modern, and the race to capture that Zeitgeist, marketers say, has spawned Flickrs and Delivrs and even a Broadway show, ‘’Bklyn: The Musical.”
It’s a phenomenon that stems from the growing acceptance of shorthand in text-messaging and instant messaging, communication that encourages users to get as much said in as little time and space possible.
March 24th, 2006 at 7:54 am
Which space predates though? SMS or IM?
March 24th, 2006 at 10:13 am
Yeah, this kind of stuff really makes me mad…ugh!
March 24th, 2006 at 11:17 am
Soon - I don’t have a clue. SMS is just IM on the cell phone, right? I would think IM came first. ICQ popularized it, really, but you have chat rooms and IRC before even that. Then AIM and Yahoo and all the rest came along.
Josh - The worst story I think I’ve ever blogged here was the one about students who submit essays filled with IM speak, thinking it’s proper English. The worst part of that was the teachers who didn’t mark down based on that. “Kids will be kids.” Shoot me now.