To think this text from the opticians is very unprofessional?

[MothershipG]

This is exactly as it was received...

"goodmorning dear customer i am regret to inform you your optician oppt been cancelled today please call to rebook sorry for inconveniece caused thank you"

No caps, no punctuation at all. Dodgy spelling and grammar.

Obviously it satisfactorily conveys its intended message so AIBU to think that this sort of lazy texting is not appropriate for a business communication? Or am I just an old fogey, unnecessarily hung up on outdated use of English?

NewUser That was (I have no idea why) genuinely funny.

A glass of for a fellow academic. Hope you're not working this Bank Holiday.

they are not the root of how we convey meaning and whilst crapuccino clearly out linguists me, I'm sure they agree with me here.

Hmmmm, truthfully I haven't thought about this much beyond how it poses problems for cleaning large, non-standard datasets. If I had to give a very quick answer that might come back to bite me on the arse later (what the hell, life is short) I'd very speculatively mumble things about whether Gutenberg-era spelling/grammar standardisation correlated with dialect "flattening", meaning-standardisation, and whatnot but honestly I can't pretend anything like enough knowledge about it. Interesting question though.

I'm not an academic. I couldn't get out of it soon enough. The drink goes to those who still are.

I've had several of those already, but cheers

Last post before turning off the Mac, but c'mon crapuccino, if you're saying that spelling and grammar are at the root of conveying meaning then you aren't who you say you are.

It may be a base but the deviations from it (without deviation from meaning) show how misguided that notion is. An argument yet to be settled by people far more clever than me (and perhaps you)

do av wunnerful day yall uv u.

@francis

That's so close to being the antonym (opposite) of what I said.

You can convey meaning through any number of ways. Ignoring the fact that Conrad was / is shite, use of 'bad' English can add to meaning. If you are writing a simple message as the OP said, looking for deeper meaning is a waste of time.

I believe in pragmatics and context and what have you but I stand by my stance that the only purpose of language is to convey meaning. Conrad would have been equally as bleak had he not included the vowel 'e'.

A speaker who said "[it's in my] chester drawers" would have conveyed their meaning perfectly. I suspect you thought that this was evidence for your argument but it isn't.

Last post before turning off the Mac

Use of language rather let you down here though, didn't it Newusername...as you immediately followed it up with another post.

Lossa luv Edballs (no PhDs at all but DANG I am good with words!!)

Lol, this thread is funny.

OP, it's not a great message but it's not worth giving it a moments thought. It's polite and more or less correct. I would have assumed that whoever wrote it speaks English as a second language. 🤷🏻‍♀️

👓

FrancisCrawford

Say what? 😂

I don't mind that they texted me but even if they had a limited word count that wouldn't stop them using caps and checking their spelling!

You're a bigger person than me Mothership I would have minded like billy-o. As they clearly had your number they should have tried ringing**
otherwise how could they be sure the message had reached you?

**Maybe they did try in which case my argument dissolves completely!

NewUser - Last post before turning off the Mac, but c'mon crapuccino, if you're saying that spelling and grammar are at the root of conveying meaning then you aren't who you say you are.

I'll go with the fact that spelling is more optional (always within certain bounds) but grammar is pretty fundamental in structuring words into longer meaningful units, wouldn't you say? Standardisation is pretty important when it comes to conveying meaning, but it depends on how non-standard the deviation is. It's one thing if I start talking like Yoda and chucking the subject at the end - you'll probably figure it out. It's quite another if I just put all the component words of a sentence in whatever order amuses me. So I wouldn't argue - as I'm sure you wouldn't - that any deviation from the standard destroys meaning but I'd say that if you stray far enough from it then the reader is just not going to be able to recover the meaning at all.

Whoops! Posted before I realised that there were extra pages...

I didn't do a PhD in any kind of linguistics, just a bog standard BA in Geography . I didn't intend to sound sneery and, as I stated in my original post, the message was completely clear, so I genuinely wondered if AIBU.

But I do think that if I were the optician or business owner I would be really unhappy if my customers were sent a message like that from my business.

Also even if English is not the first language of the sender that does not explain the lack of caps and punctuation.

Edballs They didn't try calling but I don't really like people I don't know calling me so that's fine with me.

I will go back, I've used them for years, they have always been fine and they do free eye tests.

I don't think disliking this text is a judgement on the person who sent the text, it's a judgement on the system that resulted in the text being sent by someone whose written English skills are poor and who has not been given sufficient support to send out a well-written message.

The organisation at fault here.

If this opticians send out cancellations by text (which I would prefer to a phone call) they should have a standard written message that gets adjusted for each customer.

Dear unfortunately your appointment on has been cancelled. Please call to rebook. Apologies, .

^^ That.

(What Trills said, in case I get bumped down.)

@NewUserNameHere really has no idea what she's talking about, does she?

I thought it was going to say u ave glaucoma LOL

I don't think it was that bad what they sent.

👎🏻👀👓📆❌☹️

Hmm, I was trying to see if the optician could have sent the message using emoji but I don't think it's possible🤔

What trills said generally

But on here you're a dick if you try to (even constructively) advise someone on grammar (of/have,loose/lose etc) so I guess these things are all getting dumbed down and if you can decipher it then that's a bonus!
Apologies for the ironically bad formatting etc of this post, my phone has a new screen which doesn't do what it says it does.

NewUserNameHere you are not allowed to mention having a PhD on Mumsnet... it drives them all insane. I had to name change after I mentioned mine :-)

you are not allowed to mention having a PhD on Mumsnet... it drives them all insane. I had to name change after I mentioned mine :-)

And now, by your logic, you're going to have to change it again because you just couldn't resist mentioning it Bean

Though I have to say it bothers me not one iota either way, far drives me insane. I have an uncomfortable feeling however that I may be included (or not) in the 'them' to whom you refer because I confessed shock horror, to not having one upthread, but that was just to make the point that you could be interested in language even so. Imagine that.

And yes, I appreciate you were just having a laugh...as am I!

Far LESS drives me insane.

Hoist with my own petard much?