6 ms·

> I do think that writing smsesque (...) is a really good way to make yourself look dumber, especially to non-engineers. Maybe they do that in purpose, then?.

> I do think that writing smsesque (...) is a really good way to make yourself look dumber, especially to non-engineers. Maybe they do that in purpose, then?. They do not need to be admired by everybody, especially not by non-engineers. Like the very rich people who dress extremely humbly, with torn-down clothes.

asark 7y ago
Yup. Anti-signal-signals are a thing. "I don't want or need to care how hard it is for you to understand me, so I'm not going to give any thought or effort to making it easier for you" is certainly a kind of signal.
- sixstringtheory 7y ago
  The signal I get from that is arrogance, then. Also, in an industry where “fake it till you make it” is the rallying cry, one shouldn’t appear dumb, lest one actually becomes dumb (at least in the eyes of their colleagues/superiors/reports/clients).
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    Exactly what came to my mind as well. A lack of care when you write can signal that you do not know how to write well, or it can signal that you don't care to write well. Neither of these are signals I want to send, both harm my reputation.
    - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      It can also be a signal that you're too busy to write well in that context. There are two elements to writing well. One is the efficient communication of content. The other is communication of social register, relative status, and power relationships. Hitting the right social register is an impedance matching problem that depends on the target audience. If you go too high you risk sounding snobby, pretentious, and condescending. If you go too low you won't be credible. People often assume this means that if you lard your verbiage with orotund circumlocutions and vague implications you'll be hitting those high register top notes. But in fact social register doesn't map neatly to grammar/reading age/vocab. SMSspeak in an email can - ironically - hit too high a social register because you're implying you don't have time to write a more detailed and conversational response, and you're not making the conversation a priority. This is orthogonal to any actionable message content.
  - finder83 7y ago
    This may not apply as much to written language, but there are benefits at times to pretending to be more ignorant or dumb than you actually are. My father was actually a master at this. He was brilliant in his own ways (not the academic sense, but mechanically and socially brilliant), but had the persona of the "dumb hick" down completely. People would underestimate him, sometimes try to take advantage of him, then he would gently show his competence and they would quickly backtrack and essentially give him whatever he wanted. It's obviously manipulative, but was often a way of catching people in their own trap. Think car dealers trying to cheat him, salesmen, etc. I just can't pull it off as well without seeming fake. I'm not sure there is validity to either appearing smarter than you are or dumber on a regular basis though, particularly with people you work with. Integrity is a much more important attribute to me in coworkers and employees than either feigned competence or feigned humility. Genuine competence or genuine humility are different matters though of course.
    - sixstringtheory 7y ago
      Ah yes, the Columbo! I have no problem doing this with bona fide scammers. But condescending to colleagues is a really bad look, IMO.
Crinus 7y ago
No they do not. I've seen a LOT of smsesque text that come from all sorts of different people who i'm 100% they are not trying to "appear dumber". I do not know why people do it, so i assume laziness. Smart people can be lazy too.
- sjg007 7y ago
  Soon we will be writing in emojis.
- pests 7y ago
  In the end all writing or speech is about communicating an idea. My opinion is these people have learned it doesn't matter. If an idea can be conveyed in smsesque and still get the point across while being quicker to write, then why not? I have a feeling power/authority/expert status matters here because the listeners will power through unclear communication just to gleam a glimpse of the underlying idea from this idol.
  - blondin 7y ago
    exactly! i am reading all these replies and i found them really interesting. i think the same people being annoyed by sms-like writing, would get mad at me not using proper casing with my sentences. at the end of the day, i think it does not matter. i am not writing a book or an article. and when i am texting, i would rather keep it short, sms-like. i would like to understand, truly, why people get mad at such things. it has nothing to do with being disrespectful or anything. last time someone was mad at a particular emoji. i believe it's the next form of shortening messages. and guess what? i would rather have an emoji than type a sms-like message. maybe some of us just like being efficient?
    - NateEag 7y ago
      Emoji are a terrible insult to the written word. They're also an affront to imagery. Standard images, at least, are the same image everywhere. A grid of pixels is a grid of pixels. Emoji, however, vary from platform to platform, so what you pick may well not be what your reader sees. In some cases that may matter, in others it may not. Furthermore, some people construct new meanings and usages for emoji that do not align with the actual descriptions from the Unicode standard. You'll only realize this if they tell you, of course. I had one of those moments with my wife a few weeks ago. I'm still (irrationally) upset that emoji are in Unicode. They're ambiguous, ill-defined, and they are certainly not characters in the multilingual support sense of the word. Do I use them? Yes, grudgingly, and I hate myself a little bit every time I do it.
tombert 7y ago
If that's the case then it's kind of mean, isn't it? They know that I'm a grown-up, and are writing to me like a child, effectively talking down to people. No one is going to give you major adoration for using the word "you" instead of "u", or "are" instead of "r", so I sincerely doubt they're doing it as some sort of humbling thing.
the_af 7y ago
My experience is that it's not on purpose and it's not signalling of any kind. First, let me be clear: I'm lucky that I'm surrounded by smarter people than me. Almost all of my coworkers are incredibly intelligent people, can troubleshoot and code circles around me, and understand teamwork and building reliable software way better than me. It's a great situation to be in, because I have plenty to learn from them. Unfortunately, they don't write very well in their native language (which is not English, by the way). They always ask me to proof read what they wrote. Full of typos and unclear sentences. They also seem to be less well-read than me. Many don't read fiction at all; if they read anything, it's mostly books on tech. It's like their brain power is directed at other pursuits, and as a consequence their writing skill suffers.

asark 7y ago

Yup. Anti-signal-signals are a thing. "I don't want or need to care how hard it is for you to understand me, so I'm not going to give any thought or effort to making it easier for you" is certainly a kind of signal.

sixstringtheory 7y ago
The signal I get from that is arrogance, then. Also, in an industry where “fake it till you make it” is the rallying cry, one shouldn’t appear dumb, lest one actually becomes dumb (at least in the eyes of their colleagues/superiors/reports/clients).
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  Exactly what came to my mind as well. A lack of care when you write can signal that you do not know how to write well, or it can signal that you don't care to write well. Neither of these are signals I want to send, both harm my reputation.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    It can also be a signal that you're too busy to write well in that context. There are two elements to writing well. One is the efficient communication of content. The other is communication of social register, relative status, and power relationships. Hitting the right social register is an impedance matching problem that depends on the target audience. If you go too high you risk sounding snobby, pretentious, and condescending. If you go too low you won't be credible. People often assume this means that if you lard your verbiage with orotund circumlocutions and vague implications you'll be hitting those high register top notes. But in fact social register doesn't map neatly to grammar/reading age/vocab. SMSspeak in an email can - ironically - hit too high a social register because you're implying you don't have time to write a more detailed and conversational response, and you're not making the conversation a priority. This is orthogonal to any actionable message content.
- finder83 7y ago
  This may not apply as much to written language, but there are benefits at times to pretending to be more ignorant or dumb than you actually are. My father was actually a master at this. He was brilliant in his own ways (not the academic sense, but mechanically and socially brilliant), but had the persona of the "dumb hick" down completely. People would underestimate him, sometimes try to take advantage of him, then he would gently show his competence and they would quickly backtrack and essentially give him whatever he wanted. It's obviously manipulative, but was often a way of catching people in their own trap. Think car dealers trying to cheat him, salesmen, etc. I just can't pull it off as well without seeming fake. I'm not sure there is validity to either appearing smarter than you are or dumber on a regular basis though, particularly with people you work with. Integrity is a much more important attribute to me in coworkers and employees than either feigned competence or feigned humility. Genuine competence or genuine humility are different matters though of course.
  - sixstringtheory 7y ago
    Ah yes, the Columbo! I have no problem doing this with bona fide scammers. But condescending to colleagues is a really bad look, IMO.

Crinus 7y ago

No they do not. I've seen a LOT of smsesque text that come from all sorts of different people who i'm 100% they are not trying to "appear dumber". I do not know why people do it, so i assume laziness. Smart people can be lazy too.

sjg007 7y ago
Soon we will be writing in emojis.
pests 7y ago
In the end all writing or speech is about communicating an idea. My opinion is these people have learned it doesn't matter. If an idea can be conveyed in smsesque and still get the point across while being quicker to write, then why not? I have a feeling power/authority/expert status matters here because the listeners will power through unclear communication just to gleam a glimpse of the underlying idea from this idol.
- blondin 7y ago
  exactly! i am reading all these replies and i found them really interesting. i think the same people being annoyed by sms-like writing, would get mad at me not using proper casing with my sentences. at the end of the day, i think it does not matter. i am not writing a book or an article. and when i am texting, i would rather keep it short, sms-like. i would like to understand, truly, why people get mad at such things. it has nothing to do with being disrespectful or anything. last time someone was mad at a particular emoji. i believe it's the next form of shortening messages. and guess what? i would rather have an emoji than type a sms-like message. maybe some of us just like being efficient?
  - NateEag 7y ago
    Emoji are a terrible insult to the written word. They're also an affront to imagery. Standard images, at least, are the same image everywhere. A grid of pixels is a grid of pixels. Emoji, however, vary from platform to platform, so what you pick may well not be what your reader sees. In some cases that may matter, in others it may not. Furthermore, some people construct new meanings and usages for emoji that do not align with the actual descriptions from the Unicode standard. You'll only realize this if they tell you, of course. I had one of those moments with my wife a few weeks ago. I'm still (irrationally) upset that emoji are in Unicode. They're ambiguous, ill-defined, and they are certainly not characters in the multilingual support sense of the word. Do I use them? Yes, grudgingly, and I hate myself a little bit every time I do it.

tombert 7y ago

If that's the case then it's kind of mean, isn't it? They know that I'm a grown-up, and are writing to me like a child, effectively talking down to people. No one is going to give you major adoration for using the word "you" instead of "u", or "are" instead of "r", so I sincerely doubt they're doing it as some sort of humbling thing.

the_af 7y ago

My experience is that it's not on purpose and it's not signalling of any kind. First, let me be clear: I'm lucky that I'm surrounded by smarter people than me. Almost all of my coworkers are incredibly intelligent people, can troubleshoot and code circles around me, and understand teamwork and building reliable software way better than me. It's a great situation to be in, because I have plenty to learn from them. Unfortunately, they don't write very well in their native language (which is not English, by the way). They always ask me to proof read what they wrote. Full of typos and unclear sentences. They also seem to be less well-read than me. Many don't read fiction at all; if they read anything, it's mostly books on tech. It's like their brain power is directed at other pursuits, and as a consequence their writing skill suffers.