Improper Spelling of Words (Rephrased)

I tend to skip them becuase they are too hard to read.

I do not mind them in a text because they are typically short comments. But once it gets longer than one sentance it becomes too confusing.

It would be nice if when you are in a forum posting questions looking for others help that a person would write in full words. Save the texting short cuts for the texts. We are not texting here...

Text speak.
It's not ONLY teens! It's trolls too!

Abbreviating is O. thing, that is quite another.
It does reflect poorly on the individual.
I think the first thought is IQ=12. (Whether or not it's true!)

Are you referring to answers like this one? Posted yesterday, I think.

" i wish i wld. sumtimes. but its sooo many mean ppls hear. so no i dont wnt flwrs frm mean 1s. they lyk whn symbodie is mean bcus thn they feel good to be mean 2. its soooo sad. lyk stop bein a h8tr kwim???"

Yes, that is annoying. I don't feel the need to correct other people's spelling or grammar on here because I know I make plenty of mistakes, too. But I think we can all agree that the above is a bit much. I assumed that a teenager wrote it.

It is SOOO annoying to me!

I don't mind misspellings, or typos, because they are honest mistakes... Not everyone has the advantage of a good education. I also know that there are several users whose primary language ISN'T English, so it's harder on them to write perfect sentences...

But when I have to decode something in order to comprehend it, and it's obviously done out of laziness or because they think it's cute... I just skip it. It's not worth the headache trying to figure it out... and honestly I feel that if they aren't mature enough to at least TRY to use correct English, then I sure as sugar don't want any parenting advice from them!

bcuz lyk itz sooo annoying 2 haff 2 figure out wat sum1 else meenz wen we are all growed ups u no wat i meen?

"Let's eat, Grandma!"
"Lets eat Grandma!"

"Go help your Uncle Jack off that horse."
"Go help your uncle jack off that horse."

See? Capitalization and punctuation matters! :)

It drives me bananas. One of my pet peeves is things purposely being spelled wrong for convenience or "cleverness." I can't stand to see signs like " Kwik Mart" etc... When I worked in a position where I was reviewing job applications and interviewing, I would not even consider applications or letters that were poorly written or lacked capitalization. I figured that if the person didn't care enough to take time to proofread, they wouldn't care too much about the responsibilities of the job.

With all the shortcuts and texting "speech" it's no wonder illiteracy is so high.

I especially like it when someone types "cum" instead of "come"...always gives me a giggle.
L.

My husband's aunt types like this on facebook and she's pushing 50. I find it hilarious and sad at the same time.

If it is not written in actual English, I don't read it. It may not be quite fair, but I assume people who write poorly are lazy, uneducated or dumb or possibly all three.

I wish people understood the difference between what you are talking about and what they are talking about. Sure there are some people who simply cannot communicate well. There are others, like you speak of, who purposely change up the spelling of words, for reasons I cannot understand. Near as I can tell it is for no other purpose but to annoy the reader.

Thing is what is clear is they are not after help or advice. They are trying to annoy or, as crazy as this sounds, flame! So we flame back as we always do with trollish behavior.

You would have to be an idiot to not be able to tell who has no command of the English language and who is trolling.

Yes it is annoying. I think it is more annoying because so many people here will defend this type of troll. They are still trolls, if you defend them they will keep coming back because that is what they are after.

We write to communicate, and if you aren't communicating well, you aren't communicating well.

Short hand is fine if a community has agreed upon using short hand; otherwise, regular old language (with regular old grammar rules) really is the most effective way to communicate.

I honestly don't read the messages with lots of text talk. This isn't text messaging, and by failing to take into consideration the context and audience, the person is showing me that they are illiterate. Even the supposed MED student below has lost me. Punctuation is our friend, it helps us to communicate. If you get lazy about the rules of writing, you are getting lazy about communicating. If that doesn't bother you, fine, but those that get ahead in this world have a good communication style and habit. We think in our writing. If you get slopping with your writing, your thinking is getting sloppy and unclear.

Yes. :-) You're 100% correct. I'll leave it at that since I was recently very, very, very vocal about this very issue.

EDIT: Okay, I lied. I just saw Dawn's post. Since you're referring to me (which I have no problem with, because it really was me) I thought I'd respond. I was going to do so in a PM but if others are wondering too, I'll just put it out there.

I left up what I said even after I apologized because I would rather not leave people wondering what happened. If I say something stupid, rude, mean, bitchy, or whatever then I'll leave it there so people can see why I'm apologizing. And when I apologize, I mean it. If I've actually broken guidelines into flaming or something else (without intending to, and that's rare) t'll remove it myself or a moderator will remove it. :-)

Basically, I'm saying I own my words and my posts. I don't hide behind deleting things the way other people do. That includes when I've been a complete biatch.

Yes, it does distract me and 90% of the time I don't bother to finish reading the question because it hurts my eyes to do so.

By "kids", I hope you mean a 2nd grader! Most children are using standard English and spelling by the end of 3rd grade. There's minimal excuse for not doing so... some people are lazy and simply don't see a value in presenting themselves are articulate. It's difficult to take a "serious" questions "seriously" when it is written in text language or full of phonetically spelled words.

The one that makes me the MOST buggy is "prolly" instead of "probably". That's not even close!

It's not always a teenager. Many times it's just an uneducated adult. Poor kids are always getting blamed for this stuff. My 60 year old mother types like a "teen" mostly because she's not so good with the written word. Her emails always make me cringe.

Unless someone flat out tells you their age, just assume the person on the other end didn't bother to pay attention in English class, even if English class was 45 years ago. Not that they are "obviously a teenager". <3

well Im 29 years old and I honestly will type and text like that too. Does not mean that its always a teenager. I also am a MED student! wow huh. I have had lots of literacy years behind me and such..... i still will whip out my short hand. It's just the way it is. If you don't like it ignore it. That's all I need to say.

It drives me nuts!! I can't stand it when people text me that way either!
My SIL is 20 and she was "talking to" a new guy who was older (he was 28). She told me she was kind of turned off by the fact that he used punctuation in his texts.
I'm not kidding.

Yes, it bothers me too, so you are not alone.

We don't text at all so anything in text-speak is gobbledygook to me anyway and I don't bother to read it.

What bothers me even more is when people who do not seem to be younger users of the site can't spell basic words or worse, misuse words. One recent one was the use of "torcher" when the person clearly meant "torture." There are too many other examples to give here but that kind of thing goes on all the time. I'm an editor so it makes me especially irritated. I can see how others wouldn't care as much.

I do realize that not everyone is a good speller and that being a poor speller does not make a person ignorant. But in this forum, our writing is the sole way we can communicate our thoughts, so poor writing means readers often have no idea what a person is asking. If folks would just take an extra few moments to re-read posts, or break them into paragraphs, or write by using actual words instead of text abbreviations, their posts would get more answers and more complete answers.

I had a student turn in a paper using what I refer to as text spelling. This was college and the student was around 20 (I'm only 28, so it's not like I don't text myself). She actually wrote "u" instead of the word "you". It was a major face palm moment. I tend to not read the rest of the question if it's too bad, and make the assumption that the writer is probably fairly immature and won't respond well to advice anyways.
SfromTX, I saw that post too last night and hoped against hope that it was someone's child and not someone's parent that wrote it. I think the username had to do with Justin Beiber, so let's hope it was just a 12 year old...

I know I make mistakes, especially if I am responding while I am using my phone but sometimes I wonder where these people come from when I see the spelling, sentence structure and poor writing style. If I catch mistakes I have made, I go back and correct them.

Of course, this is not an English course but please.... it looks as if some people never had 1 day of education. I look and see where they are from when I see something like that. I don't mean it in a judgemental way, I'm just curious as to how they think like that. I know things vary by state and education is different.

I'll probably get slammed again today now. Oh well, so be it.

Not enough to be nasty to the poster. It's one thing to say "Please don't text-write" and another thing to be totally nasty. One gal yesterday got slammed twice by one poster (though that poster did decide to apologize at the end of her tirade - I wondered why she couldn't just take her tirade OFF if she was going to apologize at the end). The thing is, it isn't like her to blast people...

There are a lot of different levels of education here. Some gals couldn't write a coherent story if they tried - I don't think they've ever learned how. We have masters degrees here and more, too. Yesterday's poster who fussed so much mentioned all the spell check help - some of us do NOT have spell-check on MP. I go back and fix my spelling errors when I see them. The older I get, the more errors I make. Yes, it bothers me when a post is full of them.

The only ones that get to me and that I'll come down on is a troll who is lying through his or her teeth about who they are (can't keep their made-up facts straight) and keep bothering everyone with a whole lot of drama. (Like the one who couldn't write coherently and claimed to be a law student with rheumatoid arthritis.) She got on a lot of people's nerves with the awful things she said, not to mention her impossible to get through, crazy posts about her family.

One thing is certain - if they ask a question full of text writing and get very few answers because it bothers people, perhaps they'll re-think that the next time in hopes of getting more answers. OR people will be nasty (like what happened to that gal yesterday) and the poster won't come back on the site.

Perhaps that's the whole point for the posters who bawl these young moms out anyway? That way the regulars can keep MP all to themselves?

(Hope not...)

I blame it on people texting. Now some people think its ok to write that way on blogs. Or do they think it's cool? Lol! Personally I can't stand it. It's hard enough when someone (I'm guilty) has an iPhone and it changes the word for you. Not always what you wanted. Makes it hard to read and sometimes you wonder if bad grammar is to blame. There is enough of that on here! :)

Very annoying, yes.....

Nope, I don't continue reading and do not answer. I make mistakes all the time...usually because I'm typing too fast and my spell check doesn't catch it or I miss that spell check has underlined the word.

One thing about this site is that you don't have to read every single post and this question comes up so often it must be the in the top five most asked questions. That and "could I be pregnant".

ETA: Just because someone cannot spell, does not mean they are uneducated/stupid/lazy. My mom is the WORST speller, yet she is one of the smartest people I know. Some people are just better at some things than others. It's the judgement like this post that irritates me the hell out of me.

Yep. I usually bypass these questions, so I don't get myself worked up.

It depends on if I know what they mean. heeh kidding

If its not all in txt speech then I just dont care, I get a little annoyed when its all that way but its not worth getting the panties in a wad.

For the most part I type full words but there are some that I have a habit of shortening because of previous chatting/work experiences and I just forget. (txt , thru, ppl, doc,lgl) It really has nothing to do with my age or intelligence
I see plenty of mistakes down there in the writings of one commenter that thinks that is the case.

Those that get a wad in their panties need to stop using all their little shorthands too. (DH, DD, DS, LOL etc etc)

H3r3$ 0|\|3 3>3|\| \/\/0r53... I 0f73n u53 1337 \/\/43n 73x71n9 w m¥ 50|\|!!!

((Here's one even worse... I often use Leet when texting with my son))

O_o. Times and Places, times and places!

________

(\ (\
( -.- )
o__(") (")
€h1774x1n9 R46617

hey, when i get a sec to write on this site, it is usually just that, a second! i type fast, and try to get to my point quickly. i do not proof read, often use modern day "teenage" abbreviations and what comes out, comes out.

my advice...
look at what they are saying, not how they say it! ;)

I agree with sum instead of some and things that are pruposely mispelled that don't save time, but I mispell and don't use proper punctuation often. I'm good at math, everyone has diferent abilities and you don't see people that are better at other subjects complaining about those who can type well but not figure out easy equations.
Also I am guilty at writing shorthand. Texting has encouraged and made that habit for people. B/C instead of because is easier, J. as goin instead of going, and be4 instead of before. The more things are able to be dones ASAP the less patience it seems we have.

Lighten up, already. It's not just for teens. It is not a teen age style or manner. It is the shorthand developed by people in the new age of electronics. Older people do this too.

I do agree for the most part that it should be saved for text messages.

It drives me nuts! Since I got my iPhone, I text every letter of every word and make sure words are capitalized properly. Before my iPhone, I abbreviated everything because it just took too darned long to text otherwise! However, if you have a full keyboard at a computer, you should have proper spelling and grammar :) I have to agree with Rhonda about how much time it really saves....