MagiStream

I'm a big grammar nazi. Unfortunately, that doesn't earn you a lot of popularity when you go around correcting people.
The only time when I wasn't using good grammar was on a chatroom - Habbo Hotel. If you've ever played on it, you'd see that grammar wasn't really that necessary, so I didn't use the things that you don't need to understand someone. You know, like periods, capitals - that sort of thing.
Annoyingly, other people corrected my grammar. So then, in my prideful fury, I started correcting theirs while using impeccable grammar. While irritating (because I wasn't in the habit), I usually shut them up.

However, I always used correct grammar on forums or other sites.

If I can understand what you've written (lol, lmao, brb, etc.)I don't mind so much. Abbreviations are not a new thing to the English language. If it's long enough to be word in itself (rotflmao) incredibly long (omrftmplcwrlnswmtotlcnee... that's a real thing), I have to look it up (msictisf), or it uses random punctuation(Ti:mg or whatever it is), you should just be using a real word, it will have the same meaning and emphasis because you actually typed the whole thing out.

That being said, unless you have a character limit, it's not acceptable to use those kinds of abbreviations for phrases with four letters or less. I remember having a 50 character limit on text messages and having to use things like U, R, and 2, but I only did that when I didn't have room for the extra two characters.

As far as slang goes, in forums I am having a conversation and therefore type how I would talk. Example, perfect grammar in my old English teacher's eyes for that sentence would be: "In regards to the issue of the use of slang; when I am in a forum I am usually conversing, therefore my typing reflects my speech." I don't talk like that.

I cannot stand the use of "1337" speak. It gives me a headache and we already have a written language that is a lot less confusing.

My pet peeves are apostrophes and homonymns. It's is "it is", its apostrophe is used correctly. The apples are Sally's is correct, the apple's are Sallys is not. And people should sit an exam on your and you're; there, their, and they're; to, too, and two (and 2) and the like before they're allowed (not aloud, although that would work too) anywhere near a chatroom or forum.

I'm a girl guide leader. My girls are between the ages of nine and fourteen. I was in tears when a group of about six of my nine and ten year olds could not write their own names. They could spell them, and type them out on my phone, But not one of them could actually use a pencil to write them on a sheet of paper. We do a lot of handwritten stuff now, so they have somewhere to learn it, but it was heartbreaking.

Yes, the same is with me. Abbreviations are indeed not new. Of course, I also agree that incredibly long acronyms (which is what you're talking about, and what you've given examples of) should not be used, as they can be quite confusing.

For my, I don't quite talk as I type. I am far more relaxed when I talk, mostly because my friends aren't really as intellectual as I am and it is possible they would not quite understand the words I use, nor the sentence structure.

1337 speak is incredibly annoying. I think what you're trying to say is, "why make a confusing and annoying version of our language when it is already annoying and confusing?" I think we can all agree that the various exceptions in spelling rules irritates people, and can be confusing. Isn't it i before e, except after c? Yet the word weird is not spelt wierd.

I don't care quite as much for apostrophes, but homonyms annoy me as well. I still cannot get over the fact that people constantly mix up to, too, two and they're, their, there. Very perplexing to my mind, though I can imagine that if you don't read as much as I do, your brain might start to hurt if you stare at them too long.

Oh my. That is horrible! I cannot imagine someone not being able to spell - via handwriting - their own name!

I can't stand when people KNOW or have an opportunity to learn better grammar, and still talk 'text talk', misspelling things terribly, and using numbers in words.
I understand and even try to help people who are learning English, but if English is your native language, you have no excuse, besides illnesses!
"Come on people, grow up!"

TheStrangeWeirdo wrote:Yes, the same is with me. Abbreviations are indeed not new. Of course, I also agree that incredibly long acronyms (which is what you're talking about, and what you've given examples of) should not be used, as they can be quite confusing.

For my, I don't quite talk as I type. I am far more relaxed when I talk, mostly because my friends aren't really as intellectual as I am and it is possible they would not quite understand the words I use, nor the sentence structure.

1337 speak is incredibly annoying. I think what you're trying to say is, "why make a confusing and annoying version of our language when it is already annoying and confusing?" I think we can all agree that the various exceptions in spelling rules irritates people, and can be confusing. Isn't it i before e, except after c? Yet the word weird is not spelt wierd.

I don't care quite as much for apostrophes, but homonyms annoy me as well. I still cannot get over the fact that people constantly mix up to, too, two and they're, their, there. Very perplexing to my mind, though I can imagine that if you don't read as much as I do, your brain might start to hurt if you stare at them too long.

Oh my. That is horrible! I cannot imagine someone not being able to spell - via handwriting - their own name!

Oh how I love this post. It's exactly how I feel! Thank you for posting it.

LOL! You're welcome, I guess?
Dyslexia can be quite a problem for those who have it. Totally understandable. However, I don't think a dyslexic person would be using text/1337 talk. Lol.
One of my friends, in fact, cannot spell or read. I just can't understand why not, since he isn't dyslexic or anything. He gets D's or E's because all he does is look at the board and copy exactly what is written there. He doesn't understand any of what he writes.
It's incredibly annoying when someone spells a word which is so easy to spell correctly. I'm just like, "what the? You should know how to spell that word!"
Especially on forums. I mean, you see the red underline on a word? That means it's spelt incorrectly!
In most cases, anyway. For some reason, it underlined 'spelt'.

TheStrangeWeirdo wrote:LOL! Your welcome, I guess?
Dyslexia can be quite a problem for those who have it. Totally understandable. However, I don't think a dyslexic person would be using text/1337 talk. Lol.
One of my friends, in fact, cannot spell or read. I just can't understand why not, since he isn't dyslexic or anything. He gets D's or E's because all he does is look at the board and copy exactly what is written there. He doesn't understand any of what he writes.
It's incredibly annoying when someone spells a word which is so easy to spell correctly. I'm just like, "what the? You should know how to spell that word!"
Especially on forums. I mean, you see the red underline on a word? That means it's spelt incorrectly!
In most cases, anyway. For some reason, it underlined 'spelt'.

I agree. I know several people who struggle just to get the correct letters down, not to mention the spelling! But they're trying, not ignorant.
I can't stand when people spell the simple things incorrectly (even if on purpose), like... I don't know. It's hard to think of examples when in the spotlight.

Spoiler

I found this a few days ago and I had to share it here.

I also can't stand when people say 'anyways'. That is a big one.

They may be trying, but, when I look at people like my friend, I feel they aren't trying enough. I mean, he's in grade 9! He should know how to spell and read by now.

I lol'd at that person.
"ITS NOT ENGLISH CLASS WERE NOT IN SKOOL DUMASS"
Lmao. Kudos to that person for the epic repartee!
I mean honestly, is it so hard to ask a person to spell words correctly - especially those they know the correct spelling to?

TheStrangeWeirdo wrote:They may be trying, but, when I look at people like my friend, I feel they aren't trying enough. I mean, he's in grade 9! He should know how to spell and read by now.

Maybe he just can't. You are probably not privy to all of your friend's life and at that age he'd likely rather be thought downright stupid or a slacker than to tell any of his buddies he's having trouble with something which appears so simple to,others. It's not up to you to decide whether or not he's trying hard enough.

My husband is in his late thirties; he can barely read (takes him about two hours to get the content of a simple e mail) and his spelling and grammar are atrocious. He went to a private Catholic school so it behooved him to study as hard as he could since his parents were paying for him to go there. He got told "you're just not trying hard enough" a lot. It turns out that all the trying, extra effort, and homework in the world wouldn't have helped. He's severely dyslexic to the point of illiteracy. That same man has a gift with computer languages. He can read and use any of them after seeing only a few lines.

The point is, unless you are that person or you are really close to that person you have no idea why he or she cannot read and use good grammar.

How hard is it to type out "I laughed out loud"? It's about the same to me. I can still try to read someone's post if they've put effort into the thought even if the grammar and spelling are bad; I generally skip over the posts of those who could make themselves understood but lacked the effort to do so.

Some people can be bad at grammar and spelling even without being dyslexic, I know that because my younger brother have a very hard time with both grammar and spelling in our native language, he's trying very hard to do it right and he's not dyslexic, our mother have had him checked several times. I'm not always good at grammar myself but I do try to get it as correct as much possible, but the English I learned is school where pretty much useless so I'm self taught. This means my grammar can be very very bad sometimes and good other times. I still mix up your and you're a lot and a few other words.

The grammar and spelling needs to be so bad that I can't even understand what the person is trying to say before it really starts to bother me, maybe is because I've lived with my brother, I don't know. I do find myself shaking my head sometimes at other peoples grammar and such more and more as I get better at it myself. But I don't correct them because I don't know if the person behind the screen is dyslexic or not or have the same problem as my brother and I know how annoying it can be to get corrected all the time just because you're not good at it.

I try not to use text talk since I'm still working on getting better at grammar, but it slips now and then. I put a lot of effort into typing plz as please and a few other words like is meant to be but the progress is slow. Magistream is the perfect place to practice for me when I don't feel like writing on my story I started only to get better at grammar and spelling. I even bought the English version of Microsoft Word to get better since it has the language I want to practice on as default so I don't have to pay extra to get another language pack for it, it just seemed stupid to me if I bought the version that had my native language as default since I got that pack for free because it was already install when I got my laptop.

And to the comment about a red line appearing under a word if it's spelled wrong, that is only true if the default language for your browser is English and since not everyone use an English version of a browser you can't just say that. The default language for my Google Chrome browser where not English for a very long time it was set to my native tongue. So every word I typed in English had a red line under it because my browsers spellchecker where not in English, I had to download the English version before it my browser knew I typed in English. On top of that it took me forever to find the English version because Google search didn't want to show any other result other than those in my native tongue when I search for the English version.

Hope I didn't made too many mistakes, writing like this is the best practice I can get. The forum here on Magistream have really helped me a lot when it comes to practicing my written English.

TxCat, my friend isn't dyslexic. I know that for a fact because I asked him, and like Shedragon's brother, his mother had him tested but it came back negative. He's an intelligent enough guy, the only reason his grades are bad is because he doesn't know how to spell/read well.
Nor does he claim to be a slacker, or downright stupid. He's just having trouble with English, and I recognise that. Yet, at 14, he should be able to read well enough that he can understand what the teacher is writing on the board.

The only mistakes I saw in your post, Shedragon, was that you replaced were with where. Like, for instance, "you where going to the barber's shop, but got stopped by a policeman on the way."
It's were, not where, because where deals with places.
Also, I found you weren't putting in it before is. Like, instead of, "It is a wonderful day," you would've typed, "Is a wonderful day," which is wrong.
Other than that, I don't see any errors. Good job.
Sorry if you didn't want an English lecture.