ID:194684
 
"I em hookt on fonics cuz fonics is hookt on mee!"

Is anyone else out there totally and utterly annoyed when people can't even spell "you" right? It P's me off soooooooo much. Everywhere I go, people try to take shortcuts by typing "u" or "r" in place of their real-life counterparts "you" and "are". Are these people THAT bad at typing that they can't take the extra steps to hit two more keys on a pair of some of the shortest words in the English dictionary?

Gargh, it makes me so angry. I can live with abbreviations, such as "nades" in place of "grenades", but the rest is just stupid. Welcome to the illiterate 21st century...
U WIL DEI!

Indeed. Thats one of the most annoying things to me... Not to mention people that either capitalize nothing, OR CAPITALIZE EVERYTHING. Typing is really easy.. why can't everyone learn how?

-AbyssDragon
It's funny, I also get upset at poor typing. But I don't know why, unless it's because I'm a little too proud of my own typing skills. Or because I think everyone else should go to the trouble I do, dammit. I mean, poor spelling or grammar doesn't mean someone's a bad person. And if it does mean they're lazy, why should I care? They're not hurting anyone but themselves. No reason for me to be angry.

Z
Are these people THAT bad at typing that they can't take the extra steps to hit two more keys on a pair of some of the shortest words in the English dictionary?

You know, I think it would probably take *more* effort to do all the mental mappings than simply to type it right... and then afterward, you'd have to proofread carefully and make sure you don't have any stray instances of "for" where you meant "4", and so on.

However, there is one place where I can see a practical justification for it: in an Internet-based action game, it makes perfect sense to conserve every keystroke possible. (So expect lots of illiterate player-to-player communication in CATs! :) I suppose there's also a similar payoff to using the abbreviated style in other real-time environments like chat rooms. But I can't see any real benefits in the context of a message board like this one.

Ah well. I prefer reading the Queen's English (or at least the President's English), but as long as I can understand it, I'll deal with it.
I wrote an article for a newspaper on this about two years ago. Part of my "Internet: Are You Cool?" series.

It's been one of the largest pet pieves for professionals working on the Internet to be subjected to "R U 1 w/ 4s?" IRC emoting. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to get much better over time...


In response to Guy T.
(So expect lots of illiterate player-to-player communication in CATs! :)

Well then, I'll just have to remove their ability to create text shortcuts, like in Cerulea! No emoticons, nothing! Then we'll see how illiterate they get when they can't use their precious little symbols! =)

I can't wait until someone creates a dictionary parser (including both Canadian and American English, please ;-) so we can stop them from using all manner of non-words! Of course, proper nouns will have to be added to the dictionary as they arrive, but that would teach them a lesson! =)

Wait a minute... "=)" <--BANNED!