Internet Literacy

Recommended Videos

AuntyEthel

New member
Sep 19, 2008
664
0
0
I'm a writer by trade, but I often shorten words when typing on forums, tho not to an extreme extent. Y'know, like cuz, kinda, gonna etc.

However, I think the argument for the shorthand texting style writing is weak. It makes people look really stupid. Imagine if everyone started speaking in this way. Oh... wait...

I think it's kinda sad that people cannot write in the language they speak in, as writing properly is as important as speaking properly. I remember when I was in my final year of school, and had to mark the lower grades' English/History essays, some kids would be proud of the fact that they couldn't write a paragraph properly. We shouldn't be breeding idiots. I've received flak online and in chatrooms because I choose to write properly, stuff such as OMG u rite lyk a gay u fag!!! I mean, WTF u nobhed cnt?
 

ward.

New member
Aug 6, 2008
401
0
0
My handwriting sucks* and I love messing with grammer natzi's, so I often mispell on purpose. I believe many other people share my views, perhaps hide a dark secret, that involves going to other forums, signing up with a once off account then raping the english launguage while the oldhats go nuts and tell you to use spell check.

*So why should those on the internet get special treatment when it comes to reading my rants?
 

WlknCntrdiction

New member
May 8, 2008
813
0
0
milskidasith post=18.73632.802760 said:
And once again, I repeat my argument to the "saves time" people (well, roughly repeated, anyway.):

If you really, and I mean really, don't have the time to type a few more more letters into a sentence (in this case, typing out the full word "you" as oppossed to the word "u") then you either have something that requires your urgent attention going on (urgent as in every millisecond counts, not urgent as in "my TV dinner is done") or are disrespecting me. Why? Because by shortening the word "you" you are actually saying that saving one tenth of a second of your life is more important than my ability to read your post without having to weep for the English language. This is even worse when you type in such a way it is also time consuming to decipher your message, because you are then saying that saving a small fraction of a second of your time is worth not only your ability to come off as a person who cares about having a nice discussion, but also is worth more than the numerous seconds it would take me to decipher your illegible shorthand.
Lol, I must not have alot of respect for my best friends then since I always use "U" on msn and such, that's such a stupid argument. You can be disrespectful in an alot more subtle way than that, I could just type "ok" and not give a shit about what a person is talking about yet I've used the correct spelling for the word.
If you can't understand a bit of text speak every now and again then I shudder to think what your deciphering skills are like in figuring out "U" means "you" or something as simple that a child could decipher.

Personally I'll talk text speak when I'm on msn, not all the time but sometimes, whenever I can then I'll type out the whole word, it's not so much a case of being lazy, it's jsut because I can. Just because someone talks in text speak doesn't mean they are stupid or don't understand the English language it's just that they decided not to use it at that moment, if they use it in an essay on the other hand then that is pretty stupid.
I agree with a poster earlier who said this thread smells of Elitism, even though you won't admit it it blatently is.
 

darksaiyan

New member
Oct 14, 2008
51
0
0
Me Romanian, me illitirait, me canot shpick inglisch.

Seriously now, (now I'm being really optimistic) at least now so much of the world is literate. I'm saying this basically because there are so many people who don't know how to read nor write or speak their own, let alone another, language.

Back to the topic though. Thing is that English is now pretty much a global language, despite the fact that more people speak Chinese. And that puts pressure on those who don't know English. So they learn it. Yet those who don't learn it in school have to learn it somewhere, right? And so internet foreign language learning is born. And because the official language of the internet is English... well, you get the idea.

As such, people learn the short-handed version of English... and it's official bullshit. Why? Because they start friggin' using it in real f'ing life! It's usually girls that are the culprits here, mainly because they are those with the SMS craze before the IMing began (and IRC before that).

Because I'm Romanian, we don't have to capitalize like you do. Sure, we must capitalize the start of the sentence in an essay, but we overlook that while IMing. Yet when I IM an English speaking person I capitalize the I, mostly because there is the unwritten rule of respect that "I" have towards myself.

On the Elitist issue: You don't have to be an Elitist to write proper English since it's... proper English? I mean this would be Elitist if Thou Shalt Make Thy Mouth Speak Only the English our Ancestors Have Spoken. We however just use normal, easily understandable, plain, English.
 

Johnn Johnston

New member
May 4, 2008
2,519
0
0
darksaiyan post=18.73632.818146 said:
On the Elitist issue: You don't have to be an Elitist to write proper English since it's... proper English? I mean this would be Elitist if Thou Shalt Make Thy Mouth Speak Only the English our Ancestors Have Spoken. We however just use normal, easily understandable, plain, English.
Too true. You don't need to use the longest words available in your vocabulary, you just need to properly spell the short ones. That's the language, so that should be how it is written.
 

Humbug

New member
Oct 10, 2008
7
0
0
RAKtheUndead post=18.73632.817090 said:
Humbug post=18.73632.816947 said:
To emphasise my point, I was abused the day before yesterday by my sister when she was complaining to her friend that when using predictive text on her phone it takes three key presses to get "u". I suggested, knowing exactly what I was going to get, "why not just write 'you'? It takes the same number of key presses." She said "but then you look like some gay ... texty person" then left me with "you just don't get it."
You should have told her, "You lose. Forever."

There's nothing like setting up sibling antipathy.
She wouldn't have listened, I just smiled.

And AuntyEthel said it pretty good.
 

darksaiyan

New member
Oct 14, 2008
51
0
0
Kids today never listen, especially girls :p
Nor do boys either, my brother as a clear example, and he's 15.
 

milskidasith

New member
Jul 4, 2008
531
0
0
WlknCntrdiction post=18.73632.817177 said:
milskidasith post=18.73632.802760 said:
Snip.
First off: Did I say that using text speak was the only way to be disrespectful? No, so your first argument is void. It IS disrespectful to save barely any, if any time to talk to somebody who is trying to communicate using proper English. Maybe your friends don't care, but that doesn't mean that other people don't. If your friends didn't care if you killed somebody, does that mean murder is acceptable? No, it just means that you and your friends are all crazy. And lay off the insults. I can understand text speak, but honestly I've gotten the occasional message that was nearly all three letter abbreviations for three words, and when you don't care about text speak trying to decipher "PBH TTYAS I GYM" is a hassle.

And "just because you can" is a horrible excuse for using textspeak. It is laziness. Using text speak and having multiple spelling and grammatical errors when trying to communicate will never speak well of you. On cell phones, I can almost understand it because it takes forever to text (compared to my blazing typing speeds, anyway) but for God's sake, when in a chatroom you don't save that much time. And "not deciding to use the English language" is like saying that you understand the laws but "decided not to follow them." True, you may understand it, but the only thing I have to go on is your word, and honestly, I don't trust you without proof.

A final note: It's "elitism" in the same way that law abiding citizens are "elitists" over criminals (those that commit real crimes, not victimless ones, but I'll go into politics later). It's not like I'm arguing over your misuse of a comma in an essay you wrote in the third grade, I'm just saying that you should use proper English. There is nothing "elitist" about holding you to the common and fairly easy to meet standards.
 

jasoncyrus

New member
Sep 11, 2008
1,564
0
0
Well since I'm not too bothered about punctuation I'll educate you on the term "Elitest".

Its a very harsh insult normally, regarding people who don't tolerate new players or players who are learning the environment still. Elitests are usually arrogant know it alls who treat everyone else like dirt under their feet. They are generally hated by everyone, even those who don't voice it. There have been a few incidents in the past where such behaviour has resulted in physical injury being inflicted upon them by other players.
 

Lord Krunk

New member
Mar 3, 2008
4,809
0
0
That's one of the reasons why I love the Escapist.

I've always been like this, so when i joined, I didn't feel like an outcast.

in caze u havnt noticd, i iz literit
 

Solo508

New member
Jul 19, 2008
284
0
0
Trace2010 post=18.73632.802302 said:
Some people actually choose to write and spell the way they talk- I get a kick out of these sometimes. I wonder if they are actually doing this on purpose or not...just word to the wise: if your spelling could function in a "Chick-Fill-A" advertisement, you probably need an on-board spell checker.
Haha, I know what you mean. I'm Scottish and most of the other Scottish people I meet on the internet insist on typing with a Scottish accent and use the slang ect and it usually turns out hillariously unreadable to anybody outside Scotland; "aye, a ken whit ye mean bit a diny agree wae ye" - I challenge somebody to translate that!

But anyway, typing the sort of u/you abbreviations is I think is a sort of phase you enter after you have spent a certain amount of time interacting with others on the internet... if your young. It usually passes as you get used to typing, I guess. Theres this guy in my computing class at school that I keep having to point out his u's for him. Its funny. I'm convinced that he has just started playing games online and has entered 'the phase' so to speak. :)
 

Xaryn Mar

New member
Sep 17, 2008
697
0
0
Solo508 post=18.73632.833660 said:
Haha, I know what you mean. I'm Scottish and most of the other Scottish people I meet on the internet insist on typing with a Scottish accent and use the slang ect and it usually turns out hillariously unreadable to anybody outside Scotland; "aye, a ken whit ye mean bit a diny agree wae ye" - I challenge somebody to translate that!
Hmmm I think it means: Yes, I know what you mean but I do not agree with you.

Perhaps it helps that scottish pronounciation reminds me a bit of the danish pronounciation so I just have to read it out loud as it is written and I get an idea about the meaning (mind you that scottish spoken is still difficult, especially if spoken fast)
 

Graustein

New member
Jun 15, 2008
1,756
0
0
Solo508 post=18.73632.833660 said:
"aye, a ken whit ye mean bit a diny agree wae ye" - I challenge somebody to translate that!
Yes, I know what you mean but I don't agree with you.
What's so hard about that? :p
 
Feb 13, 2008
19,430
0
0
Your.Name.Here post=9.73632.802955 said:
People who EVER use "lol" should be killed.

I consider myself to be literate both in reading and writing.
I know, very impressive.
Uh...I use LOL and have written articles for scientific magazines and other places. 1337 speak is actually useful as long as you're using it within it's own context.

That's the stickler. Imitation Saccharin's chicken scratch is probably as bad as my pen-writing, and I was taught to write with a fountain pen.

It's contextual. If you're talkin lik thys or NID MOAR PUNK SHOO ASIAN then it's acceptable as long as you're talking to people within that group. Not all of us can be Poet Laureates though, but we should try and keep a baseline where we can be understood.

Hell, I overuse TLA's, ellipses and Capital Letters like anything; but as long as your message gets across, I think the Grammar Nazi's should back off a little.

For our scrawlers though, at least try and use the spellchecker and read your post back to yourself. It means the rest of us aren't as likely to misunderstand what could be a very profound point.
 

teh_gunslinger

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. did it better.
Dec 6, 2007
1,325
0
0
killerap85 post=18.73632.808881 said:
I spell phoneticly. /shrug People can get all uppity if they want. I confuse words like soul and sole. The only people I have found that are truly bothered about it are the self-righteous ones that would just find something else to get all uppity about. What other point is there to pointing out things so trivial if not to bolster your own ego?
But if I read a post, lets say, about the immortal sole it seems rather silly. Now, I realise that I can decipher the message from context, but not all cases are as obvious. The point of correct spelling, as have been pointed out above is that it makes reading so much easier. It 's waste of time if I have to consider why a sole cannot die.


Xaryn Mar post=18.73632.833769 said:
Solo508 post=18.73632.833660 said:
Haha, I know what you mean. I'm Scottish and most of the other Scottish people I meet on the internet insist on typing with a Scottish accent and use the slang ect and it usually turns out hillariously unreadable to anybody outside Scotland; "aye, a ken whit ye mean bit a diny agree wae ye" - I challenge somebody to translate that!
Hmmm I think it means: Yes, I know what you mean but I do not agree with you.

Perhaps it helps that scottish pronounciation reminds me a bit of the danish pronounciation so I just have to read it out loud as it is written and I get an idea about the meaning (mind you that scottish spoken is still difficult, especially if spoken fast)
It's true that Scottish pronounciation is a bit like Danish. And really funny in a way. I know a guy who wrote a sentence, and this was before I realised the similarities, that sounded read like gibberish. He then read it aloud and it was just like hearing a Danish sentence. I was very surprised. So the above sentence is not so hard to understand when read aloud, as you point out.

Also, nice to see other Danes here. :)