20 years ago, at my first job at a TV advertising rep company, we still used TWX to communicate in writing. I think it's Telex. Email was just becoming widespread, only I don't think it was called that. We used big main-frame computer terminals and some tv stations were equipped to accept communication from that, but damned if I know how that worked!!!
Anyway, there were a bunch of "shorthand" abbreviations we had to use when typing up our TWX messages for the teletype operators to transmit. And they transcribed them as we typed them. It was important to use fewer characters to communicate, I guess to save time and money (bandwidth?).
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There were a whole list of them, and I accepted them as the "Professional lingo" I was expected to learn.
BTW = by the way UFN = until further notice STNCR = "Same time period, no change in rate" FTC, LTC = first telecast, last telecast TX = thanks COB = close of business b-c = because
I still use a lot of these abbreviations in everyday email communication, usually at work but sometimes in personal emails, too. Maybe b-c I learned them in a business context, I don't find them annoying nor do I feel they make you seem illiterate, in fact the opposite. But 2, U, ur, etc I think really bother me because they are abbreviations for small words to start with. Abbreviating "by the way" to btw saves you 7 keystrokes out of 10. But saving 2 keystrokes? Why bother?
