Spelling and the English Language (Ever heard of it?)

[GeddyLee]

Ok first off I want to prefice this rant with the fact that I know a lot of this will reflect on some people on this board as well as MANY OTHER boards. But its been something that has been buggin the tar out of me!

WHY IN THE HELL CAN'T PEOPLE SPELL OUT WORDS?!?!??!?!?!?!

Yes I put that in all caps to make a point! You see many people who type "text speak" instead of typing the freaking ENGLISH language! Have we as a society just gotten to darn lazy to spell out words like, to (2 as many people would spell it) or anyone (any1) and bazillion more words that this new generation of language challenged people are using in their every day verbage. I often wonder if these language challenged people use the same language on their school papers or on their job applications?

Whatever happened to the day when people would be proud to say they can speak and write the English language? Have we regressed so far now that it is to late for this new generation of "text speak" people to grow the hell up and start using REAL English?

I am not talking about people who mistakenly use the wrong word, like there for their and vice versa, but that get my goat though. But that is understandable. And just general mispelling of words happens all the time. I am sure I will be re-editing this rant a couple times finding words and sentences I messed up.

But these people who talk in "text speak" just drive me bonkers.

I am sure now there will be a ton of posts of people talking "text speak" just to annoy me, but its all good This is America and we have the right to ***** and moan and point out people's mistakes. I am sure I will only expect the same from others to do the same to me

Thanks for listening

[Street Wolf]

You win.


I agree.


End of thread.

[SyntheticShield]

DUDE! Seriously! I think you and I would get along famously in person. You have no idea how much this annoys the crap out of me. No particular offense to anyone, but I could just shoot some of them. Is it REALLY that hard to spell a word out?

And I\'ll add to your rant. I loathe people on instant messenger that send a sentence in two word chunks or like that.

12:00:01 Them: Hey
12:00:02 Them: Whats up
12:00:03 Them: How you doin
12:00:04 Them: Im doing okay
12:00:05 Them: been kinda busy
12:00:06 Them: work is crazy
12:00:07 Them: Im tired
12:00:08 Them: I need a vacation
12:00:09: Them: Are you there
12:00:10 Them: Hello!
12:00:11: Me: Oh, I can talk now? I thought maybe you had an intermittent connection with all the IM\'s.

I mean, is there something wrong with speaking in full sentences and using punctuation and maybe check spelling once in a while? Some times my friggin\' PC sounds like some fire drill. I get people sending IM\'s like that above. I have to have the sound on because I use IM at work to communicate with other technicians and have to know when they send me a message.

Ive come close to blocking a few before.

[morkuma]

good thing this is about textspeak and not spelling because you would have failed sir.

on that note. i agree.
@syntheticshield
i'm horrible for that in im's, i have a real problem with hitting enter way to quickly then realising i have something else to type... i'm not as bad as the example you showed, but i will split up sentences pretty bad and have multiple lines where one single line would have sufficed. heh. it is more of a continuation of the thought i had, but it ends up looking like a giant mess of lines...
as far as regular old everyday spelling on the internet, i know i am not perfect with my spelling and usually i end up screwing a couple things up once i go past a paragraph or two, but that is just me not really looking what i'm typing when i type it, i have a tendency to drift away from the window i'm typing on and just start staring out the window or something so i don't notice most of my mistakes.

[GeddyLee]

LOL Morkuma! As I said in my initial posting here, my spelling sucks at times too, no doubt! Thanks for pointing that out My rant was more of the fact how lazy people are. I mean seriously..........How hard is it to type to instead of 2? Or anyone instead of any1. I know I get funny on some of my verbage. IE Werd instead of word, but that is just speech in l33t speak cause it's fun to mix somethings up to have a good laugh.

I don't mind a little spelling failure. I can deal with that, its just the rest I have a hard time digesting

[QwikGT]

i text a lot, so on my cell i text like a fool. but on the forums i will write everything out

[GeddyLee]

Syn you most likely 99.5% correct on that one

I know when I use to play Ultima Online way back in the day, there use to be some players that would literally speak one word on each line of text they would type ingame. For example.

Them: Hi
Them: Do
Them: you
Them: want
Them: to
Them: form
Them: a
Them: group
Them: to
Them: kill
Them: a
Them: pker (PK stands for Player Killer (I played on a PvP server back then)
Me: Yes sure we can form a group to find the PKer. He killed my miner the other day.
Them: Ok
Them: meet
Them: me............

Well you get the idea. I mean I had to literally scroll text chat to read one bloody sentence. And there were many who did that back then. But that is more so poor sentence skills than anything. But it follows long in the breath of my rant

I mean when you read a sentence like this........

"Does any1 no how 2 fix this"

Sure you can understand it, but why can't they just type the whole sentence out in plain English? You see a lot of text speak transferring from the cellphone, which I can understand, to forum boards all over the place. And most of them are NOT replying from their PDA or cellphone most likely when they post stuff like that.

[GeddyLee]

i text a lot, so on my cell i text like a fool. but on the forums i will write everything out

Ding Ding Ding we have a WINNER!!!!

Thank you QwikGT! I can certainly understand that methodology. I too, like you, do the same thing. I guess some folks just don't understand that simple concept

[TCO]

I agree with you guys, I hate it when people are typing like that. Even if I wanted to I think it would take me longer to type any1 then anyone because it's easier to type "one" then trying to find the "1" key. I text a lot and even then I try not to use that kind of stuff. On IM I usually don't use any capitalization or grammar marks but you can still read it.

[morkuma]

hell, you guys would be impressed with my texting skills then... i type everything out. i text like a motherf*cker but i never use any abbreviations exept the usual lol brb, etc

[GeddyLee]

hell, you guys would be impressed with my texting skills then... i type everything out. i text like a motherf*cker but i never use any abbreviations exept the usual lol brb, etc

LOL I bet

I am one of those "1 finger pecker" kinda guys when it comes to text messaging. I do use the any1 and 2 stuff when I text for the simple fact it would take me an hour to type out regular English on that stupid little keypad! Plus my fingers are bigger so they tend to hit other keys not meant to be used in the word

I guess that is why I stay away from texting when I can just CALL the person to speak with them I save my texting for IM's mostly

[archemedes]

I never got texting, if I have something to say to you and have your cell number I call you, it costs me less money (I am not paying extra a month to get unlimited texting when it more than doubles my bill)

[morkuma]

i'm on virgin mobile pay as you go, and most of the people i know are as well... it is only 5c per text so texting is definately cheaper when you want to have a quick conversation.

[Reptile]

You guys are wound up for a Friday!

I never got texting, if I have something to say to you and have your cell number I call you, it costs me less money (I am not paying extra a month to get unlimited texting when it more than doubles my bill)

Dude, I'm with you 100% here. My wife does this all the time, and it drives me absolutely crazy.

[archemedes]

i'm on virgin mobile pay as you go, and most of the people i know are as well... it is only 5c per text so texting is definately cheaper when you want to have a quick conversation.

virgin is too expensive, I have at&t and spend 20 bucks a month, when I had the virgin one it was $40

[morkuma]

i'm on virgin in canada.
i RARELY use my cellphone. i think it took me about 7 months to go through fifty bucks.. and i don't think there is a single cell phone plan in canada that is less than 30 a month

[mlambert]

I can accept the text messaging thing. I can even accept it online.

What I can't stand are people who can't use decent grammar in person.

For example:

Lemme axe you a quession. I want to scream, "NO, YOU CAN'T AXE ME A QUESSION. APPARENTLY, YOU CAN'T ASK ME A QUESTION, EITHER."

Do he...? NO, HE DO NOT... HE DOES...

If I had a secret power, it would be the one where I could fix these things before they exited out of the person's mouth. Then again, I wonder how people can read if they can't even speak. Obviously, the salespeople idiots who circulate my building never graduated third grade. This is evident by their complete disregard for the huge "no soliciting" signs all over the place. I LOVE it when they come to my office and pay no mind to the sign on the front of the door. I had two such morons yesterday come by and want to sell me benefits. Since they paid no mind to the sign or my NICE "no", I was forced to get *****y, as in, "Well, since you obviously can't take a nice no, let me just say get the hell out of my office before I have you charged with trespassing." I SWEAR, IT IS STILL JUNE.

[a_v_s]

Ok first off I want to prefice this rant with the fact that I know a lot of this will reflect on some people on this board as well as MANY OTHER boards. But its been something that has been buggin the tar out of me!

WHY IN THE HELL CAN'T PEOPLE SPELL OUT WORDS?!?!??!?!?!?!

Yes I put that in all caps to make a point! You see many people who type "text speak" instead of typing the freaking ENGLISH language! Have we as a society just gotten to darn lazy to spell out words like, to (2 as many people would spell it)

If you are going to rant about spelling and proper English, at least make sure your own words are spelled correctly, and your sentences properly punctuated (You spelled "preface" wrong, and forgot a few commas)

It's especially funny that you complained about people spelling "to" as "2", and then you spelled "to" instead of "too"

But anyways, all sarcasm aside.....

Interestingly enough, when I was in high school, I knew these girls from the bay area that actually talked in IM speak, even though "IM" wasn't even invented yet. They would always say stuff like, "HR" for "how rude", "GFY" for "good for you", "W.T.F.", etc, etc..

Pretty hilarious yet annoying at the same time. I found myself having to translate for other friends at times

When in college, I found that when talking to people in emails, ytalk, and later IRC and such (IM still wasn't born yet) people used similar shortcuts in their writing.

These types of shorcuts don't bother me too much... Ebonics on the other hand.....

[morkuma]

These types of shorcuts don't bother me too much... Ebonics on the other hand.....

*shortcuts

[GTPJOE90]

i do agree STRONGLY texting pisses me off! but i sometimes do the u instead of you and little things..