You’resupposedtowritequickly!

　　CanyouwriteinEnglish?Andcanyoualsowritee-mailEnglish?Maybenot.E-mailEnglishisanewkindofwrittenEnglishthatisbeingusedtosavetime.

　　Alotofe-mailEnglishwordsmightlookunfamiliartous–manylooklikerubbish!ThisisbecausetheycomefromacomputerprogramcalledICQ,whichmeansIseekyou.ICQisane-mail“chatline”thatpeopleusetohaveonlineconversationswithfriends.OneCanadianteachersays,“Peoplecanusetheircomputerstotalktoeachother.Butyouaresupposedtotypequicklysotheotherpersondoesn’tgetbored.Usinge-mailEnglishhelpsyouwritequickly.”

　　E-mailEnglishmostlyusestwotypesofwords.Thefirstare“abbreviations”.Theseareformedbyusingthefirstletterofeachwordinthephrase.Forexample,BTWmeans“bytheway”,andGSLmeans“can’tstoplaughing”.Thesecondkindofwordisa“homophone”-it’screatedbycombininglettersandsymbols,ornumberstosoundlikeotherwords.Anexampleofthiswouldbetowrite“great”as“gr8”,ortowrite“seeyoulater”as“CUL8r”.

　　Whenyouwritee-mailEnglishyoudonotusepunctuationmarksonlyinthetraditionalway.Youarealsosupposedtousethemtoshowtheemotionyouarefeeling.Thesearecalled“emoticons”.Theadvantageofusingpunctuationmarksisthatyoucanmakefaceswiththem.Themostcommononeisthehappyface-itlookslikethis:)anditismadewithacolonandarightbracketbesideit.

　　E-mailEnglishisfun-it’salmostlikewritingriddles.Youcanlearniteasilybyyourselves,andexperimentwithyourownideas.Itisnotrudetowritee-mailEnglish,butitisimportanttouseitonlyatthepropertime-whenyouaree-mailingafriend,orsendingamessagetoafriendonmobilephone.Butyoushouldn’tuseitinclass,andrememberyourteacherswillnotbepleasedifyouwritee-mailEnglishinatest!首发