Email Acronyms, Revisited

Whenever I get bored of reading jargon-filled emails at work, I imagine those acronyms mean something else — or, are euphemisms for underlying annoyances.

TTYL (Talk To You Later) - Ta ta, you losers.

ASAP (As Soon As Possible) - As Slow As Possible (often turns out to be true)

IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) - I'm Humble. Occasionally.

FYI (For Your Information) - F*** Yourself, Idiot.

WRT (With Respect To) - Wearing Red Thong (this works beautifully at times)

It's fun re-reading those mails with these acronyms.

The Pink Gorilla & How To Use 'Since'

(Note: The purpose of this post isn't to proclaim mastery over the English language. It isn't my first language and I will be the first to admit that I'm far from perfect at it. But the idea here is to help fix an error which I see recurring too often.)

I recently moved to Bangalore. The newspapers I read here are Times of India and Bangalore Mirror and I often find myself wincing when I spot a 'for' and 'since' error. And it's been happening so often, I've made peace with it — which I shouldn't. Making peace with editorial errors is a sin for editors, a threat to our existence. Dinosaurs can't get cozy with asteroids, lions can't be friends with zebras, and editors can't accept bad grammar.

See for yourself.

Exhibit 1: Erroneous uses of 'since' in Mirror. It's a shockingly long list.

Exhibit 2: The absence of the same on Guardian and NYT.

Why Guardian and NYT? While writing, I often have doubts over the arrangement of words. I cross-check those sites to ascertain if I'm wrong or right. And my experience says those guys get it right more often than us. English, after all, is their first language.

After encountering these errors as frequently as I do, I'm compelled to write this post.

Part of the reason for these errors is the Indianisation of English. The literal translation of the Hindi phrase "picchle paanch din se" would be "from the last five days." The correct translation, of course, would be "for the last five days". But for, since and from have become interchangeable in our everyday usage. So face, meet palm.

Language is shaped by consensus. It constantly moves from its acceptable standard towards the more error-prone version widely embraced by common people. But until an error becomes the acceptable standard, I will choose to call it an error, even if it is a widely understood localisation.

How can we avoid these errors? Here's a small checklist.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For

'For' is used where the length of time is defined in exact or inexact terms.

For 10 hours.

For 10 days.

For 10 years.

For the longest time.

For ages.

For 50 overs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since

Since is used when we define a point in time, exact or inexact.

Since 1998.

Since last week.

Since yesterday.

Since last summer.

Since whenever.

Since the World Cup final.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since and for are often used in place of 'because'.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's an illustration to guide you.

Think of a length of time (years between 1998 and 2002) as the distance between Delhi and Mumbai (1400 kilometers) covered by a train journey. The use cases emerging from this illustration are as follows.

For

For four years, I've not seen a pink gorilla.

For 1400 kilometers, I've not seen a pink gorilla.

Since

Since 1998, I have not seen a pink gorilla.

Since I left Mumbai, I have not seen a pink gorilla.

Here's a PDF you can download and print for reference.

The Pink Gorilla and the Mumbai Rajdhani Express

... but not in bed

Several Orkut forums have this game going on where you take your fortune cookie of the day from your homepage, add "in bed" at the end.

For example, if your fortune says "Good things will happen to you today", make it "Good things will happen to you in bed". You get the drift.

I played around with the variables a bit, and came up with my own.

Take any punchline from a well-known advertisement and add "but not in bed" at the end.

The results are hilarious. The suffix gives a vicious spin to the punchlines.

Sample these:

- Just Do It... but not in bed.
- Kingfisher, The King of Good Times... but not in bed.
- Masti Ne bBanaya Hame Marzi Ka Maalik... but not in bed.
- Sabki Pasand Nirma... but in bed.
- Amaron Batteries, Last Long, Really Long....but not in bed.

As it turns out, the suffix gives a nice twist to famous movie quotes too.

- Mogambo khush hua... but not in bed.
- Rishtey mein to hum tumhare baap lagte hain... but not in bed.
- May the force be with you... but not in bed.

I even tried it on cricket commentary:

- The two left-handers are stroking it well... but not in bed.
- The Bangladeshi batsmen are mesmerised... but not in bed.

If you find a few TV serials with names that have a verb in them, the suffix works there too:

- Kyuki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi... but not in bed.

Right, so if you ever come across people playing this game, you know where it all started. *wink*

Business Plan # 37

UnTwitter

UnTwitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question...

What would you rather be doing now?

Man smacking lips

P-:

In case this emoticon catches on, you know where it started.

Update [April 11, 4.28 pm]: With credit to Anirudh, who came up with this:

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