You’re supposed to write quickly!
Can you write in English?And can you also write e-mail English?Maybe not.E-mail English is a new kind of written English that is being used to save time.
A lot of e-mail English words might look unfamiliar to us – many look like rubbish!This is because they come from a computer program called ICQ,which means I seek you.ICQ is an e-mail “chatline” that people use to have online conversations with friends.One Canadian teacher says,“People can use their computers to talk to each other.But you are supposed to type quickly so the other person doesn’t get bored.Using e-mail English helps you write quickly.”
E-mail English mostly uses two types of words.The first are “abbreviations”.These are formed by using the first letter of each word in the phrase.For example,BTW means “by the way”,and GSL means “can’t stop laughing”.The second kind of word is a “homophone”- it’s created by combining letters and symbols,or numbers to sound like other words.An example of this would be to write “great” as “gr8”,or to write “see you later” as“CUL8r”.
When you write e-mail English you do not use punctuation marks only in the traditional way.You are also supposed to use them to show the emotion you are feeling.These are called “emoticons”.The advantage of using punctuation marks is that you can make faces with them.The most common one is the happy face - it looks like this :) and it is made with a colon and a right bracket beside it.
E-mail English is fun - it’s almost like writing riddles.You can learn it easily by yourselves,and experiment with your own ideas.It is not rude to write e-mail English,but it is important to use it only at the proper time - when you are e-mailing a friend,or sending a message to a friend on mobile phone.But you shouldn’t use it in class,and remember your teachers will not be pleased if you write e-mail English in a test!首发