Big Shot Language

I am used to writing complete words and complete sentences. Younger people write SMS language. I had a resident doctor who in the first week of her residency in my unit wrote that an infertile woman and husband were 'staying 2gether' while filling up the patient's case paper. There are others who use even more cryptic language. We have a third variety of people in the hospital who write words in places of sentences and those words often exclude letters. We had a Dean once who would write 'Pl sp' on letters sent by us. We learned gradually that its meaning was 'please speak'. Perhaps it suggests strongly that the concerned person is so busy that he or she cannot spare the time to write complete words and sentences, leave alone grammatically correct English. Since we had no option but to suffer this, we suffered. But then that Dean's subordinate officers caught on and started doing the same. It gave us occasions for hearty laughs. I had received a letter from an administrative officer asking for my remarks on some request from a small time vendor. It had to do with sale of items required by newly delivered mothers and babies. I wrote back extensively covering all legal aspects of the same. Then I wrote that we did not have space owing to repair and renovation work going on in the department. The letter came back to me with 'pls rply' with a cross next to it, and also at the place where I had written about the nonavailability of space. I could not understand the meaning of this remark of an elderly administrative officer (i.e. Non-SMS generation person). I also could not understand what was not clear to this person when I had answered the original letter in grammatically good English and more than legible hand. So I wrote back 'I cannot make out the meaning of the remark. Please clarify.' I could have wasted a lot of time trying to get this person, then more time telling him what it was all about, and then getting some wise remark from him. My stress level would mount, and happiness reduce proportionately. I think I did very well, considering my consistent track record of catching the concerned person immediately and debating the issue with an intent to win. Now I understand that I have to go the level of the person I am dealing with.