Use Your Words

I fear that the combination of text messaging and the internet (especially Facebook) is creating a world full of illiterate monkeys. I will fully admit to using the occasional “BTW,” “FYI” or some other real-world-accepted acronym – but that’s where I draw the line. I cannot tell you how crazy it makes me to go on Facebook and see statuses and comments made by grown adults with fully developed vocabularies creating imaginary, bastardized versions of shorthand.

Stop saying “sum.” Stop using the letter “n” instead of typing out the word “and.” And for the love of satan, don’t use numbers instead of letters!! “Gr8” is NOT a word recognized by the English language – and if you think it is, f469 the American education system. Who told you these were words? You don’t speak in such a way. You speak using all the letters assigned to a word, even if they are silent. You do not say “cool, but spell it with a ‘k’ and a ‘w’ so I sound more awesome.” So what makes you think this is an appropriate way to write like this.

Honestly, what are you accomplishing? It doesn’t make you look cute or clever. Are you trying to save time? By typing “sum” instead of “some,” congratulations, you have successfully saved yourself the extremely arduous task of making one more keystroke. If you compile all of the time in one lifetime saved by neglecting one more keystroke, you would probably have enough time to sneeze. No, you are not saving yourself any time - maybe you’ve staved off getting carpal tunnel syndrome for a couple of hours. All you have really accomplished is to make yourself look to everyone else like an uneducated hillbilly who is confused by her new-fangled computin’ machine.  I see it so often and it's become so egregious, I feel like we're on the verge of losing English as a written language altogether. 

Let me make a quick disclaimer before signing off. If you’re a of tween-ish age, fine, I get it. I accept that. I suppose it’s the 21st century’s version of dotting your i’s with teeny hearts, or writing how you “Luv (insert random celebrity) 4-eva.” But once you’re past age 13 or so . . . USE YOUR WORDS!

Sarcasmo

Currently Excited About:   the new IPAD my mom got me for Christmas! It’s so much fun. And speaking of fun, I need more Words With Friends opponents . . . send me your username here or on Facebook!