As a technical writer, I feel communicating well is the primary focus of my job. Perhaps this is why I found the following email exchange particularly comical today:
Email from <name deleted to protect the innocent … or not so innocent>:
Hey Will,
I have a question about the <xyz project>. Do you know if the <important information> was added to the curriculum?
My response:
Hey <unnamed person>
Yes, I was able to add the <important information> last week.
Her response (not edited):
Thank you for the fup!
After my initial shock, I determined “fup” stood for “follow-up”, but this was not my first reaction. I won’t share with you what I first thought “fup” stood for, but I bet you can guess.
When you’re trying to communicate something to someone in a business setting, I advise you really think about how someone might interpret your abbreviations before you send out that message. I know in this day and age everyone likes to use shorthand and abbreviations because text messaging and tweeting limits the number of characters, but maybe we should keep our abbreviations to those forms of communication and out of email.
Feel free to “fup” this post with your own comments on the subject 🙂