Short forms

Wise Words: short 

Expressions with “short” often have a negative meaning, especially in business contexts.

• It’s a bad idea, for example, to focus too much on the short term.
• Employees don’t like it if they are only given short notice about important changes.
• Customers don’t like to feel they’ve been short-changed.
  
• Employees can become demotivated when their company is short-staffed.
  
• When the boss makes short-sighted decisions, both customers and employees can suffer.
  
• And if you give short shrift to your colleagues and customers, don’t expect to be successful.

What about short forms? In Business Spotlight 5/2010, you’ll find a test on common short forms, together with tips on when to use them. The title of the test is “Keep it short and sweet”, which is always good advice in business situations.

Before I put the test together, I surveyed several experts in the field of business English teaching for their views on the value of teaching or learning short forms.

Vicki Hollett, author of a wide range of popular business English textbooks, pointed out that while students have to learn the common short forms used in their field or in general business situations, she wouldn’t expect her students to use txtspk (textspeak, the term used to refer to short forms that are used in text messages, chats or on Twitter).

“It only takes five or ten minutes to learn the basics and master how they work, so why not play safe? But do I expect my students will write them? No, I’d be surprised if they did. It’s generally not worth the risk of confusing people.”

Pete Sharma, author of a number of business English textbooks and a consultant on using technology in teaching, sees that there is a definite need to teach students the common terms, but his feelings about using them are similar to Vicki's.

“I do think we would expose students to non-standard English, but make little or no attempt to get them to produce it… Awareness-raising exercises — yes. Getting them to produce 'Cu l8ter' — I am less convinced.”

These comments, and my own experience as a business English teacher (and businesswoman), led me to create a test that mainly focuses on understanding common short forms — not on producing them. At the same time, there are many acronyms and abbreviations that people use every day that learners of business English should be able to use correctly. We cover many of them in the test. 

Ian Badger, business English trainer and author, also agrees that students need to learn certain short forms, but advises non-native speakers to be prudent in their choice of expressions. 

"The learning of industry-specific slang, abbreviations and acronyms etc is necessary, and it is the job of the BE (business English) trainer to help learners to acquire this language. The problem often is that the BE trainer does not have the knowledge of the language used within a particular company or industry and cannot give learners the help which they really need.
 
"In general terms, short forms are more likely to cause misunderstandings in international communication between speakers of different nationalities / with different levels of proficiency and are best avoided."

Evan Frendo, a freelance trainer, teacher trainer and author, has similar advice:

“Every profession/context uses its own jargon. Short forms are just one type of jargon. It's not the teacher who decides what format is used. Our job is to do target discourse analysis and teach accordingly.”

Do your lessons fall short of your needs? If in doubt, you should voice your concerns.

In business, we are expected to shorten delivery times, cut budgets, streamline processes and downsize companies — so why can't we use short forms? If you do, use established terms and people will understand you. That way, you’ll keep things short and sweet.

If you've finished the test, try our online exercises on the same topic. 

• Short forms: the grammar
  

• Short forms: back to the roots

• Short forms: half & half

• Short forms: creating portmanteau words