Call ASAP You Are Able
January 12th 2012 06:41
"Please send me your updated resume in word format or call ASAP you are able so that we can discuss it in more detail."
What's the problem here? To start with, ASAP is not really a word. It's a group of letters that make a kind of abbreviation for a string of words. This is called an "acronym." The acronym "ASAP" stands for the phrase, "as soon as possible."
So saying, "call ASAP you are able" is a construction that makes no sense at all. It's like saying "call as soon as possible you are able."
For the record, here's the whole ad:
We are looking SAP MM/PM & PP Consultant
Required skills: MM w/PM & PP Resource.
If you are interested in any of this opportunity, please send me your updated resume in word format or call ASAP you are able so that we can discuss it in more detail.
I look forward to speaking with you!
Now, it's pretty evident that this ad was written by a non-native English speaker. That makes it excusable. I'd be in a lot worse trouble than this if I had to write in another language. In fact, I was. Just ask my teachers. I was a real whiz at English, though, so trust me on this stuff.
The bigger problem I have with the ad is this: the context and details of the posting seemed to indicate that the job is located in the US, working for a US company.
So where's the guy's boss? Who approved this copy for publication?
Look, everybody knows there are no editors on the Internet. Nobody at the job board they sent this to was going to edit it, were they?
What company worth working for lets things go out without review? Especially if the draft is written by somebody unfamiliar with the language? If I were an "SAP MM/PM & PP Consultant" (whatever that is), I don't know how comfortable I'd feel about working for a place that's so careless about the material it sends out representing itself.
Oh well. I'm not an "SAP MM/PM & PP Consultant" (whatever that is), not that I know of anyway, so I don't have to worry about that part of it.
Where did the term ASAP come from? That's my real interest here.
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary
(http://www.etymonline.com)
the phrase was invented in the US Army in 1955. Unfortunately, they don't say how they came to know this. I can believe it, though, since I remember ASAP as being probably the second-most used four-letter word I heard the whole time I was in the army.
By the way, in the army, it was always pronounced as a single word (AAA-sap), but a lot of civilians pronounce it as four separate letters (A.S.A.P.). I don't know why this is, either.
Another source, http://www.onelook.com (sort of the Google search of dictionaries) listed 55 dictionaries that contain the term ASAP. A random peek at a few of them was no help turning up any more details about the origin, though.
Oh, and by the way, since it's only four letters, you can string together a lot of four-word phrases that work with it. A site called The Acronym Finder (http://www.acronymfinder.com) lists 116 verified phrases – and 250 more unverified ones – that use ASAP. But let's face it, the overwhelming favorite is "as soon as possible."
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