1085. Do abbreviations like “plz” and “ty” actually make your texts feel less sincere? New research suggests they might. We explore how shortened words affect how your messages are received — even in romantic conversations. Then, we offer practical tips for writing thoughtful, specific thank-you notes that reflect real gratitude.
1085. Do abbreviations like “plz” and “ty” actually make your texts feel less sincere? New research suggests they might. We explore how shortened words affect how your messages are received — even in romantic conversations. Then, we offer practical tips for writing thoughtful, specific thank-you notes that reflect real gratitude.
The texting segment was written by David Fang, a PhD student in marketing at Stanford University. Sam Maglio, an Associate Professor of Marketing and Psychology at the University of Toronto, also contributed to the writing. It originally ran on The Conversation, and appears here through a Creative Commons license.
The "thank-you" segment originally ran on the OUP Blog and appears here with permission. Edwin Battistella taught linguistics and writing at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, where he served as a dean and as interim provost. He is the author of "Do You Make These Mistakes in English?" (OUP, 2009), "Bad Language" (OUP, 2005), and "The Logic of Markedness" (OUP, 1996).
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Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. Today, we're going to talk about text messaging abbreviations and how to write a good thank-you note.
Before we start, I have a quick pronunciation correction. I fell victim to the same phenomenon I was telling you about in the "epitome" podcast recently. I had only ever read the name of the fancy private library in New York that I love; I'd never heard it pronounced out loud. It is the Grolier Club. The Grolier Club. Thanks to Peter Atkinson for letting me know.
This first segment is by David Fang from Stanford, and it really jumped out at me after last week's episode about simplified spelling.
by David Fang
My brother’s text messages can read like fragments of an ancient code: “hru,” “wyd,” “plz” — truncated, cryptic and never quite satisfying to receive. I’ll often find myself second-guessing whether “gr8” means actual excitement or whether it’s a perfunctory nod.
This oddity has nagged at me for years, so I eventually embarked upon a series of studies with fellow researchers Sam Maglio and Yiran Zhang. I wanted to know whether these clipped missives might undermine genuine dialogue, exploring the unspoken signals behind digital shorthand.
As we gathered data, surveyed people, and set up experiments, it became clear that those tiny shortcuts — sometimes hailed as a hallmark of efficient communication — undermine relationships instead of simplifying them.
Most people type “ty” and “brb” — for “thank you” and “be right back” — without batting an eye.
In a survey we conducted of 150 American texters ages 18 to 65, 90.1% reported regularly using abbreviations in their daily messages, and 84.2% believed these shortcuts had either a positive effect or no meaningful impact on how the messages were perceived by the recipients.
But our findings suggest that the mere inclusion of abbreviations, although seemingly benign, start feeling like a brush-off. In other words, whenever a texter chops words down to their bare consonants, recipients sense a lack of effort, which causes them to disengage.
It’s a subtle but pervasive phenomenon that most people don’t intuit.
We started with controlled lab tests, presenting 1,170 participants ages 15 to 80 with one of two near-identical text exchanges: one set sprinkled with abbreviations, the other fully spelled out. In every single scenario, participants rated the abbreviating sender as less sincere and far less worthy of a reply.
The deeper we dug, the more consistent the pattern became.
Whether people were reading messages about weekend plans or major life events, the presence of truncated words and phrases such as “plz,” “sry” or “idk” for “please,” “sorry” or “I don’t know” made the recipients feel shortchanged.
The phenomenon didn’t stop with strangers. In more experiments, we tested whether closeness changed the dynamic. If you’re texting a dear friend or a romantic partner, can you abbreviate to your heart’s content?
Evidently not. Even people imagining themselves chatting with a longtime buddy reported feeling a little put off by half-spelled words, and that sense of disappointment chipped away at how authentic the interaction felt.
Still, we had nagging doubts: Might this just be some artificial lab effect?
We wondered whether real people on real platforms might behave differently. So we took our questions to Discord, a vibrant online social community where people chat about everything from anime to politics. More importantly, Discord is filled with younger people who use abbreviations like it’s second nature.
We messaged random users asking them to recommend TV shows to watch. One set of messages fully spelled out our inquiry; the other set was filled with abbreviations. True to our lab results, fewer people responded to the abbreviated ask. Even among digital natives — youthful, tech-savvy users who are well versed in the casual parlance of text messaging — a text plastered with shortcuts still felt undercooked.
If a few missing letters can sour casual chats, what happens when love enters the equation? After all, texting has become a cornerstone of modern romance, from coy flirtations to soul-baring confessions. Could “plz call me” inadvertently jeopardize a budding connection? Or does “u up?” [with the letter U] hint at more apathy than affection? These questions guided our next foray, as we set out to discover whether the swift efficiency of abbreviations might actually short-circuit the delicate dance of courtship and intimacy.
Our leap into the realm of romance culminated on Valentine’s Day with an online speed dating experiment.
We paired participants for timed “dates” inside a private messaging portal, and offered half of them small incentives to pepper their replies with abbreviations such as “ty” instead of “thank you.”
When it came time to exchange contact information, the daters receiving abbreviation-heavy notes were notably more reluctant, citing a lack of effort from the other party. Perhaps the most eye-opening evidence came from a separate study running a deep analysis of hundreds of thousands of Tinder conversations. The data showed that messages stuffed with abbreviations such as the letter “u” and “rly” [for "really"] scored fewer overall responses and short-circuited conversations.
We want to be clear: We’re not campaigning to ban “lol.” Our research suggests that a few scattered abbreviations don’t necessarily torpedo a friendship. Nor does every one of the many messages sent to many people every day warrant the full spelling-out treatment. Don’t care about coming across as sincere? Don’t need the recipient to respond? Then by all means, abbreviate away.
Instead, it’s the overall reliance on condensed phrases that consistently lowers our impression of the sender’s sincerity. When we type “plz” a dozen times in a conversation, we risk broadcasting that the other person isn’t worth the extra letters. The effect may be subtle in a single exchange. But over time, it accumulates.
If your ultimate goal is to nurture a deeper connection — be it with a friend, a sibling or a prospective date — taking an extra second to type “thanks” might be a wise investment.
Abbreviations began as a clever workaround for clunky flip phones, with its keypad texting — remember tapping “5” three times to type the letter “L”? — and strict monthly character limits. Yet here we are, long past those days, still trafficking in “omg” and “brb,” as though necessity never ended.
After all of those studies, I’ve circled back to my brother’s texts with fresh eyes. I’ve since shared with him our findings about how those tiny shortcuts can come across as half-hearted or indifferent. He still fires off “brb” in half his texts, and I’ll probably never see him type “I’m sorry” in full. But something’s shifting — he typed “thank you” a few times, even threw in a surprisingly heartfelt “hope you’re well” the other day.
It’s a modest shift, but maybe that’s the point: Sometimes, just a few more letters can let someone know they really matter.
That segment was by David Fang, a PhD student in marketing at Stanford University. Sam Maglio, an Associate Professor of Marketing and Psychology at the University of Toronto, also contributed to the writing. It originally ran on The Conversation, and appears here through a Creative Commons license.
Next, between graduation and the upcoming wedding season in the U.S., I thought you might enjoy a piece on how to write a thank-you note. This one was written by Edwin Battistella.
by Edwin Battistella
I write a lot of thank-you notes. I thank donors of organizations that I support, gift givers after the holidays and birthdays, friends who have invited me over for dinner, guest speakers who come to my classes, community partners who work with my students, colleagues who help me solve problems, and editors and publishers (you know who you are). You probably write a fair number of thank-you letters too (or should), for graduation and wedding gifts, scholarships and fellowships, interviews and recommendations, moving help, and just plain good advice.
Thank-you notes are part of my daily writing practice and something I like to do when I’m still well-caffeinated and relatively creative. Writing thank-you notes involves the same elements of craft as any writing: a clear point, conciseness, and enough detail to show that you have put some thought into the exposition. Email or paper? Often an email is fine for a thank-you, but for many things, I still like the ritual of cards, envelopes, and stamps.
Many of us struggle with thank-you notes. We live in such an age of irony and casual communication — the tweet, the post, and the selfie — that it can feel awkward to express sincere gratitude gracefully. When we fumble our thank-yous, we may fall back on cute expressivity like “Thank you sooo much!!!!” (where the three ooo’s and four !!!!’s are trying do all the work) or archaic gravity like “Words cannot express the depth of my gratitude for your kind help.”
What can you say in a thank-you note besides “thank you”? Be specific about why you are grateful. Be authentic. And let your note fit the action you are thanking someone for and the relationship you have with that person. Here are some ideas and examples (with details changed) that can help you build specificity, authenticity, and good fit into your thank-you notes.
Say why a gift or act is meaningful, useful, or helpful. When someone gives a presentation, you might thank them by writing something like this:
I appreciate your coming to my class to speak about editing — and from their feedback, the students appreciated your visit as well. Having someone who works in the publishing business provide first-hand insights allows us to have discussions that go beyond the textbooks and journal articles we read. Thank you.
Or when you return a borrowed item, you can express your appreciation and explain how the loan affected you:
Thanks for encouraging me to read “Go Set a Watchman” and for lending me your copy. I was undecided about reading it, but when I did I came away with a new regard for Harper Lee. Now I’m inspired to reread “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Another approach to specificity is to tell how a gift was used. For some birthday cash from a relative, you can explain what you bought:
Thanks for the generous gift card, which I used to buy a new jacket—with professorial elbow patches even. I’m planning to wear it to an upcoming conference. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and value your friendship, which I’ll think about whenever I wear the jacket.
Or in the case of a donation to a non-profit, you might explain what that donation does for the organization’s clients:
Thank you so much for your generous donation to the Community Fund. Your gift will help to provide scholarships for youth and seniors, and will bring them together in meaningful arts activities. With support like yours, we’re able to build inter-generational programming and a stronger community for all of us.
And if you receive a scholarship yourself or for a family member, you can describe its impact:
I am writing to thank you for the scholarship support for my daughter’s summer arts program. We have had a hard time the past few years and have had to move around a lot. She has always enjoyed the arts and the summer arts program, which we could not afford otherwise. Working with artists and making new friends will be a life-changing experience for her. Thank you all so much.
We also thank people for favors, acknowledging their efforts on our behalf. A thank-you note is appropriate even when the actions are part of someone’s regular job, but especially if they make an extra effort or if their work has had a significant impact. If a staff member lends her expertise to solving a problem, you might send a note or email like this:
Thanks for your help last week working through all the policy issues with our unruly group. All of us appreciate your thoughtful preparation and the clarity you brought to the effort. Because of your help, we’ve now got a revised document that the Executive Committee has reviewed and approved.
And if someone gives you some resume coaching, you can let them know the result:
I wanted to let you know that I got the editorial internship that I applied for, and thank you again for looking over my resume and cover letter. Your advice enabled me to make a more effective and successful presentation.
Thank-yous are about relationships and gratitude, not give-and-take, but sometimes it’s okay to offer to return a favor.
Thanks again for the ride to the airport. It’s great to have a friend who will wake up at the crack of dawn to help me make my flight. I hope I can return the favor sometime.
Finally, give your note a check for “cheesiness,” which is variously defined as “vulgar sentimentality” or “blatant inauthenticity.” (And check out the Oxford English Dictionary for some interesting etymological tidbits on that word. “Cheesiness,” will lead you to “cheesy” and “cheese,” and a possible connection in some of its meanings to the Persian word “chiz,” meaning “thing.” Who knew?)
Cheesiness is a relative notion, of course, and what sounds inauthentic coming from me might sound perfectly authentic coming from you, so it’s a matter of being true to your own voice and temperament, as well as the situation. But generally speaking, stay away from adverbs and exclamations and from flowery, stilted language.
And thank you for listening to this. I appreciate the opportunity to think, reflect, and share.
This segment originally ran on the OUP Blog and appears here with permission.
Edwin Battistella taught linguistics and writing at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, where he served as a dean and as interim provost. He is the author of "Do You Make These Mistakes in English?" (OUP, 2009), "Bad Language" (OUP, 2005), and "The Logic of Markedness" (OUP, 1996).
And finally, I have a familect story from Mary.
Aloha from the big island of Hawaii. My name is Mary Love. I raised four amazing children — two sons and two daughters — many years ago, and now they bless me with grandchildren. Anyway, long ago, one of our rules in the household was we don't call each other stupid or ignorant or dumb or anything like that. It was, like, forbidden. It was the worst curse word you could do is call a sibling stupid. So at some point, I think the youngest was about three or four years old or something, and she knew the rule too, and somebody punked her about something, and she got quite upset and said, "Oh, oh, you're studaloo!" just like made up this word, nonsensical word on the spot, and from there on and we all knew it meant "stupid." We all, we just laughed and roared and to this day we all say, "Oh my god, well I gotta tell you the most stoodaloo story, wait till you hear this." Or we have also passed it on to the grandchildren who have passed it on to their friends; we know another family that has incorporated "studaloo," and they sometimes mispronounce it, and we roll our eyes like, "It's studaloo." Anyway, it was a great serendipitous word that a four-year-old made up in the moment, and it has a true legacy in our family. Thanks for everything you do, Mignon. Aloha.
Thanks so much, Mary. "Studaloo" is fun to say, and I think it's so interesting that you're the second person to call in with a familect that came about because you weren't allowed to call people "stupid," so the kids just made up other words.
If you want to share the story of your familect, a word or phrase that you only use with your friends or family, leave a message on the voicemail line at 83-321-4-GIRL or leave a voice message on WhatsApp. Be sure to call from a nice, quiet place, and if you want that number or link later, you can always find them in the show notes.
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast, and we have lots of other shows. This week, the Modern Mentor is continuing her series on how to handle burnout if you're a manager. Again that's the Modern Mentor podcast.
Thanks to Morgan Christianson in advertising; Holly Hutchings, director of podcasts; Dan Feierabend in audio; and Nat Hoopes in Marketing, whose dad is really into genealogy and discovered that they are related to Charlemagne.
I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl and author of the tip-a-day book "The Grammar Daily." That's all. Thanks for listening.