Proper English
 

The disability/inability to write proper English seems to be an escalating problem for most people these days, especially on the Internet. I get the impression that people who write like this are either too lazy, too dumb or they just want to bug the hell out of other people. Personally, I hate it when people write shit-English and then expect me to be able to read it.

So here's a short conversation I had with a fellow on Soulseek. Apparently he was looking for a movie called Blow. Here's what happened;

So, how do you handle yourself in these situations? Are you bothered by the lack of grammar, punctuation, etc., or do you tag along and do your best to write even worse than your peer?

Thankfully, none of my friends type like that. It IS becoming more prevalent though and I just don't understand what the point of it is. Honesty, typing out "you" and "u" will save a person an insignificant amount of time even in the long run. Some of the words aren't even shortened versions of other words, like "wonna" as opposed to "wanna." It's a big turn off when girls do it too. My biggest pet peeve though is when people type "would of," "could of," or "should of." It's "would HAVE," "could HAVE," or "should HAVE." Using OF instead of HAVE makes NO SENSE at all.

I don't see this trend of typing like idiots stopping anytime soon and it's unfortunate. While it doesn't apply to everyone, it really is a testament to someone's intelligence so the good thing to come out of this is that you'll know who not to talk to. "Hey u wonna talk 2 m3?" Uh... no thanks.

Happens all the time on a message board I moderate. I usually shoot them down, and emphasize that you'll never get any position on a message board unless you type correctly. I've done it once already, I could do it again. :)

And they say that Americans have butchered the English language. Looks like this Brit is holding his own in that department.

I honestly don't humor conversations with people who type like that. If I HAVE to, I usually ask them why they can't type out the actual words.

If they act stupid, I block them. I don't want to deal with people who can't handle typing out a few extra letters to make their message more concise.

I've actually seen some English papers written in this kind of language. Granted, not ALL of the papers were like this, but "ppl" was used and things of that nature.

Really IRKS me.

I hate when people actually SAY "lol" when they hear something funny

It does make sense. For stupid people. ;) But I agree with you, this is by far some of the most annoying tendencies I've seen in the English language.

Well, I would have blocked him too, but I just had to see how far I could carry this. Also, I wouldn't mind helping him out, if only he were a little more susceptible to help.

"Say" as in really, actually, truly SAYING it? Like in the real world?

I've seen it done before in those PurePwnage episodes and it bothered the hell out of me, but if I heard it in person...I don't know what I'd do. That's just plain annoying.

That was damn funny.

I probably wouldn't have the patience to put up with that.

I would've used the word "inability" rather than "disability" in your initial post, which is most commonly used to describe people who are physically rather than mentally impaired. I'm just quibbling though as it's mostly a contextual thing.

I don't talk to people who can't be bothered to speak in clear English. I'm fortunate enough not to know many people who are that dumb though. I actually think it's a common issue because people want to sound cool or "with it" when it comes to texting and chatting using technology. It can't be that people are REALLY so stupid that they would spell so terribly; at least, I hope not.

That's just stupid. Writing stuff like that in English papers! I can understand people using words like that on the internet messaging to their friends or writing litttle notes, but that should be as far as it goes.

I always try to write correctly. Just writing this, I looked up the word "messaging" to see if I had spelled it correctly.

And with shortened versions of words, it doesn't make sense. I'll pass on typing shortened versions of words. Except for "lol" because that's not a word. ;)

ya i actually hear people say "lol" and "rotfl" and all the other crazy acronyms involving laughing at something

I mean if they have the mentality to type like that, they must have equal mentality to spell correctly offline and everywhere else. So what makes it any different online?

When I was in middle school, I had a few friends who used to type like that. They also wrote in both upper and lower case letters for every other letter of a word. It was a struggle to read through it all.

These days, I might use "lol," but not so much.

I caught an interesting article today addressing the question on 'How Deaf People Think'. Its not something that we all stop and consider on a daily basis, but language serves a very important role in the thought process: complex though can be formed with complex language. Its the basis behind 'new speak' as a means of control in the book 1984. A dumbed down simplistic language results in a dumbed down simplistic thought process that is easier to manipulate.

So as the article reveals, deaf people think in terms of sign language. It makes me wonder if these people who use a horribly crippled english on a daily basis also think this way. Is it like a self-inflicted form of mental retardation, or do they really not know any better?

Oh... The whole "LeT's tYpE LiKe tHiS" style... I hated that also...

So do books that use broken english to emphasize accents bother you too? Sometimes it makes reading the book harder, but then you really get to dive into that character.
I know it doesn't have a whole lot to do with this topic, but I wonder if that bothered you too.
Personally, I can deal with most typos, but having to decipher lazy typing is really annoying. I think it comes from too much cell phone texting where you pay for the letter. That really sped the butchering process up.
In a sense, it wasn't being lazy, but trying to be creative in saving a buck that spawned the fad. Just sad really.

It just seemed like it required more effort than simply typing normally. I never understood it myself.

People have the effort to type LiKe tHiS, but they don't put enough effort into making a full word... God, people are weird.

I think it came out of trying to grab attention in Ebay auction titles. ANYTHING to get noticed. All caps, no caps, lots of spaces, and the misplaced caps type.
Technology has certainly allowed many new ways of botching language!

You should have got an autograph. I think you were speaking with Ali G!

I'm really starting to hate the frequent "your/you're" thing. Also, using an apostrophe for plurals. What?

"your gonna get some chip's for me?" :boxing:

If it's on AIM, or something of that sort, I'm fine. I mean, I understand that much. If it's on a blog, or somewhere with a community, grammer/proper english is a much. I understand if English isn't your first language, but hell, it isn't mine either, so the person should at least TRY to type as..well, good as possible. I know my english isn't outstanding, but hell, I try, don't I?

I have no choice but to go along with it, my job is to accept orders for a cable company over the internet in chat rooms, and trust me Killy, some of the customers I get are just as bad as the dude you where talking to.

I always figured it started in Quake III. Something akin to KiLleR4HyRe