So I was doing my normal blog writing this week, and as I was proofreading through one of my blog posts I noticed that I had mistakenly used the word “no” in a place where “know” should have been used.  I have to say that I may not be the greatest of spellers, but I have never had a hard time with using the correct forms of various like-sounding words such as two, too, to – or know, no – or pair, pear, pare.  As I thought about why this may have happened, it dawned on me that my texting is beginning to influence my brains typing process.

When you text (or in some cases tweet), you are going to be shortening your typing strokes and hope that the recipient will understand the meaning based on the context.  Many times, someone will “no” what I mean when I type the shorter version of the like-sounding word and therefore I choose to use the shorter version.  Since you are limited on the amount of characters you can use in a given message, you use a vast array of abbreviations.  Many times, it is just plain quicker to type the shorter version as well.

Is texting causing our content to suffer?

The one simple reminder that comes into place is be sure to proofread all of your emails, blogposts, and marketing materials.  Sure you can likely get the same point across with using the incorrect shortened form of a word, but on a medium that is not limited by characters, you should always use the correct form of a word.    Do not replace “you” with “u”.

Sure texting has become an extremely valuable medium for contacting individuals, but be sure to separate the quality of writing used in your texting life, with the quality of writing used in your professional life.  Your business’ image is dependent on everything you do in life, every email you send, every blog post you write.  Make sure that you market your image correctly with proper writing techniques.

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