Begin Rant:
It's gotten bad. I'm not even talking about the internet-speak, or the chat-room speak. I expect lax standards of communication in a place like this. I expect teenage girls to drop punctuation when SMSing. I expect my bo'sun's mates to be illiterate. That's normal.
What's not normal is an e-mail from the affectionately named "Bunny Pancake Office" that's unreadably dense with acronyms, mixed metaphors, and implied subjects. These are paid professionals, people whose livelihood depends on being able to communicate their brilliance with other people. I haven't understood any of their e-mails since day one.
The implied subject is definitely my favorite, as it lends itself to all sorts of interpretation. For example, let's say that you're writing about a major conversion of business plans from one organizational format to another. Aside from all the meaningless junk about building "straw men," or "running up the flagpole see who salutes," you need to express the idea that there will be some redundant work in some parts of the process. But instead of saying "This plan will require some duplicative effort," you just say, "Will require some duplicative effort." What will require duplicative effort? What's the subject? Can I make one up to fill in the obvious blank? "Joe's Bunny Rabbit Farm will require some duplicative effort" is as logical of a guess as any, I figure. It's almost like a fun game, now!
But it isn't just subjects that are disappearing. Check out this sentence: "Much resistance re-programming TPC cover QLA shortfalls, why re-distribution decision has NOT been made yet." What?
(sigh)
End Rant.