Is use of a '&' (ampersand) a sign of laziness?
I’ve noticed recently that in more and more emails (and to a lesser degree, text messages) the author is using & instead of ‘and’ in the text.
Examples: “Jill & I are going to a concert this weekend” or “don’t forget to bring the salad & wine to the picnic”.
Although I know what they mean, it seems like ’&’ is just them being lazy. Would it take that much more effort to write ‘and’?
Would you write a note with an ’&’?
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19 Answers
If it’s a quick message, I don’t judge the grammar or short cuts the writer takes. I’m not an English teacher, and I use my energy for other things.
There was a company I worked for, that had ”&” as part of their copyrighted name !
Laziness yes, but I’m fine with it in texts and quick emails. It bothers me less than when people write ur and luv.
Oh, ffs, judgement about punctuation? It’s efficient, not lazy.
And, BTW, by your reckoning, use of the word “don’t” in your 2nd (yes, I did that on purpose) paragraph is lazy.
<eyeroll>
Waybackwheninthegoodoldtimeslanguagedidnothavepunctuationorevenspacesbetweenthewordsitwasuptothereaderstorereadthewholestringofletteroutloudtoseparatethewordsandthesentencesintheirmindsonlyafterthemedievalmonksgotlazydidtheystarttoputspacesinbetweenthewordsandinventedpunctuationtoseparatesentences
You know what is Laziness? Dropping the capital Letters from Nouns, or dropping the U in Words like Colour or Armour.
If I’m texting, it’s taking me more effort to go into the symbols keyboard to find the and symbol than it would take to write and. I don’t see how this is “lazy”. It’s a cultural shift to textspeak.
Being lazy would be typing like this: “fr m8 mi mum say can’t go.”
What I said was “For real, mate. My mother says I can’t go.”
Being lazy can be a good thing. Just think a woman who was tired of washing dishes (possibly accused of laziness) invented the dishwasher. Many great inventions have probably come from “laziness.”
@Blackberry Funny enough, out of all of my friends, the one who uses the text shorthand the most is Scottish, and you just wrote a sentence that she would likely write.
@ragingloli You forgot dropping L’s like traveled instead of travelled, and the E in judgment. There are so many examples.
People use all kinds of text speak now. Ikr, yolo, fomo, etc.
This is also why so many business names have become acronyms, i.e. KFC, BR, DD, BK, etc.
I don’t judge it. Language evolves.
Ampersands are way more cooler. Thats y.
When I was little, we used to go to the A&P. That’s how it was spelled. A&P. That was in the late 1960s and 1970s.
@JLeslie
I wouldn’t even know where to begin in reference to Scottish and British speaking, it’s all over the place lol.
@Blackberry Well, you wrote mum, so that just added to me thinking of my friend, but yeah, the Scottish accent and dialect can be rough! When it’s extreme I’m lucky to make out 70% of it.
Dang @canid. I thought it was finally national ice cream sundae day at long last.
Oh well. Happy &&&&&&&@
Well, @Dutchess_III it is also National Grandparents Day. Make those kiddos celebrate you!
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