These days, I interact with a lot of coworkers over instant messaging chats. Either they’re solving my problems or I’m solving theirs. To show appreciation, the chats are peppered with ‘ty’s, ‘yw’s, and ‘np’s.

I was texting with Gwen about a computer problem that she was dealing with. Afterwards, she thanked me. I replied “yw” since I’m to lazy to type “you’re welcome.”

Gwen shot back “yw? What is that? You’re weird?”

I answered “you’re welcome”, thinking that someone was on the defensive side.

Vincent had been reluctantly helping someone with some video game setup issues. He was reluctant because the person was far out of his depth and the whole thing seemed doomed to failure.

To express his irritation, when Vincent was thanked for his help, he responded with ‘yw’ instead of ‘np’.

When hearing of this, Vincent’s friend said “Your Canadian is showing. You showed your impatience by moving from cordial to slightly less cordial.”

It’s been pointed out that “np” is often autocorrected to “no”.
As in:
“Thank you so much.”
“No.”

This needs work.

One of my brothers has asked folks what they’re doing with the time that they’ve saved by not typing all the letters for “thank you” and “you’re welcome”.

I’m pretty sure that I’ve wasted my extra time.