You might all speak English, but if you speak “text” and your prospects don’t – you may be losing them to confusion.
As more and more people are texting, those acronyms and other abbreviated forms of communication are slipping more and more into email messages, blogs, and even newspaper articles!
But are you SURE everyone knows what you mean when you say TMI, or HOA, ROLF, or IMHO? They might not, and then the effectiveness of your message will be lost.
At best, they’ll puzzle over it for a while and then delete your message. At worst… they might get angry or decide you’re a fool.
The acronym you use could mean something offensive – or just idiotic – to your reader. After all, there are only so many letters to choose from, so your prospective client might have a far different definition than you do.
How about giving it a rest? How about taking the time for communication? Slow down and spell it out – make sure that your message can be clearly understood by all who read it.
I used to rant about the confusion caused by misplaced modifiers. Now reading that the “Driver hit the cow in the red car” doesn’t seem nearly as confusing as a headline I saw recently: “Is AR TMI?”