abbreviations, efficient communication, thank chatters

[gusl]

Isn't it great how the Internet has made written language more efficient? I think we have IRC to thank for creating the world's first informal text medium (before the internet, even letters among family members seem unnecessarily formal)

Almost half of the abbreviations I use indicate an epistemic weakening, following the CYA principle:
AFAIK
AFAICT
IIRC
IMHO

Exceptions:
BTW
FYI
IOW
IRL
LOL
WTF
TTYL

I wish English had short ways of pronouncing of IIRC, IMHO, FYI.

I should adopt:
AFAIU: "as far as I understand"
FWIW: "for what it's worth"
IIUC: "If I understand correctly"
ITYM: "I think you mean"
IYKWIM: "if you know what I mean"

Comments

[jcreed.livejournal.com]

My claim is precisely that amateur radio was integrated enough to form "its own language", at least to the same extent that IRC did. The wikipedia article on Morse Code gives an example of how a substantial part of a conversation can take place entirely inside the conventional 'Q-codes' etc. Of course eventually you have to resort to a "real" language, but this is true of IRC as well.