I saw this in a corporate announcement yesterday.

Problem:
The word “adds” is not a noun.

Explanation:
This phrase appeared in a sentence talking about how a company’s net increase in video customers was expected to be 150,000 in the first quarter of 2008.

Unfortunately, one could misread this as “150,000 net video ads in first quarter” — as in “150,000 net [Internet?] video advertisements in first quarter”.

In other words, one could misread “adds” as “ads” and believe that the writer was referring to advertisements.

More important than this possible misreading is the fact that “adds” is a verb, not a noun.

I believe that this growing tendency to use “adds” where “additions” is what is meant is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis.

It’s simpler to say or write the one-syllable “adds” than the three-syllable “additions”.

One could say the same thing about “installs” versus “installations”, about which I wrote last December.

Solution:
“150,000 net video [customer] additions in first quarter”