Soapbox time.

One thing that has always irritated (and alarmed) me is the increasingly large population of people who have resorted to using instant messaging and texting lingo in everyday situations (also known as Netspeak). While I can understand the desire to shorten words like “your/you’re” to “ur” or “for/see/why/you” to “4/c/y/u” when using Twitter or text messaging, I am absolutely astounded at people who use this style of conversation in places where it shouldn’t be used.

Case in point: While I was in school, a friend of mine was writing a letter to her professor asking about office hours. It went something along the lines of “i was wondering when u were going 2 b in ur office so i can stop by and get the notes. plz let me know, thx.” I honestly couldn’t believe it. A professor? You’re sending an email like that to the very person who is trying to educate you? That’s almost as bad as sending an email like that to a boss or client.

Don’t even get me started on the fact that many people cannot use English properly to begin with (I always die a bit inside when I see someone use “you’re/your” incorrectly, let alone “there/their/they’re“), but on top of that, soon people won’t know how to spell most words in the English language. “Thank you” will soon become “thx,” “because” will become “bcuz,” and anything ending with the letters “ks” will soon be replaced with the letter “x.”

Granted, I don’t always use proper capitalization or punctuation when chatting through IM or text, and I make my fair share of spelling mistakes. I do, however, know how to spell the words I learned in grade school and how to properly use them. And when writing emails to people outside my immediate circle of friends and family, I ALWAYS make sure to use proper capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Why look like you never made it past fourth grade?

Again, while I generally do not have a problem with people using this sort of conversation style in character-limited mediums (though I myself can never bring myself to type “ur” – I tried it once and almost cried), I simply cannot believe how widely used it is becoming in mainstream media.

I wonder how much money I could make from a Netspeak rehab program?