When I was younger my mother who grew-up on Shakespeare and Keats would never let me use too much slang at home. She would frown and say, “that’s not even a real word”. Then again, that was the pre social media era (wow less than 30 but I sound so ancient, don’t I?!).
In the past few years many words commonly used online have found their way to the Oxford online dictionaries. ‘Unfriend’ , ‘blog’ and now ZOMG. Oxford defines ZOMG as an informal abbreviation of ‘oh my God’, a sarcastic comment on an inexperienced or overenthusiastic poster. Other words now included in the official online dictionary include ‘social graph’, ‘paperless’ and ‘Twittersphere’. Find out more on their blog here>>
Wonder what this implies for official writing. There’s been plenty of murmur in organisations about people often being too lazy about writing ‘proper’ English. Emails quite often start with ‘Gidday’ and end with smiley faces. The line between our online and offline lives is becoming thinner by the day and organisations need to keep a close eye on internal as well as external communications. Once again, I’d strongly stand by the suggestion that every organisation needs a ‘social media policy’ to moderate (not police) its use in offices. I’m off to telling all the ‘Tweeple’ about this but you say what’s your take on it?
Related
http://mashable.com/2011/06/03/zomg-twittersphere-oxford-dictionary/
