I'd say it's acceptable on a phone, but some people take it so far that I can't understand what they're trying to tell me.
Is Text Speak Ever Acceptable?
- Thread starter P0RTAL
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Text speak is acceptable if you are talking to your friends or writing short messages on your phone. In all other circumstances it is not acceptable.
A colleague of mine used to be a teacher - she said school students in Australia were putting SMS-Text abbreviations into their school reports. That's just sad. I've seen job applicants use SMS language in their resume - this means that their resume is INSTANTLY thrown in the bin. If you can't be bothered to write properly on your resume, which should try to portray you in the best possible light to your potential employer, they get the idea that you just don't care very much about getting the job.
It's sheer laziness - if you know what the abbreviation means, you know the full word associated with that abbreviation. For example, if you know what srsly means, you obviously know how to spell the word "Seriously". We are not dealing with a lack of knowledge here, we are dealing with a lack of CARE. Some students simply care SO LITTLE about their work that they use SMS language because it saves them a few keystrokes.
Once again - I've got nothing against SMS language when people are sending short little messages on their phones to each other for social purposes. After all, your service provider charges you per character used. So it makes economic sense to use abbreviations.
However, there is NO EXCUSE in any other area. You don't get charged money per character used in your school report. If you use SMS abbreviations for work documents or for school documents, the message it sends is clear: YOU DON'T CARE. And if you don't care, why should the grader or the marker or your boss care?
A colleague of mine used to be a teacher - she said school students in Australia were putting SMS-Text abbreviations into their school reports. That's just sad. I've seen job applicants use SMS language in their resume - this means that their resume is INSTANTLY thrown in the bin. If you can't be bothered to write properly on your resume, which should try to portray you in the best possible light to your potential employer, they get the idea that you just don't care very much about getting the job.
It's sheer laziness - if you know what the abbreviation means, you know the full word associated with that abbreviation. For example, if you know what srsly means, you obviously know how to spell the word "Seriously". We are not dealing with a lack of knowledge here, we are dealing with a lack of CARE. Some students simply care SO LITTLE about their work that they use SMS language because it saves them a few keystrokes.
Once again - I've got nothing against SMS language when people are sending short little messages on their phones to each other for social purposes. After all, your service provider charges you per character used. So it makes economic sense to use abbreviations.
However, there is NO EXCUSE in any other area. You don't get charged money per character used in your school report. If you use SMS abbreviations for work documents or for school documents, the message it sends is clear: YOU DON'T CARE. And if you don't care, why should the grader or the marker or your boss care?
I can understand people text speaking ifthey have a reguler phone but if people with qwerty key pads or smart phones it drives me insane
I only use it when it's the significantly easier way to say something. For example I say: Lol? when I'm not sure whether or not something is funny. It's a lot faster than saying "I'm not sure whether that was funny or not".
Even in texts I don't use text speak, and don't know anyone that does. Unless you've just hit the character limit, it's just a disgrace as it has a powerful affect (or whatever the xkcd strip refers to, meh effect) on the rest of your writing skills. Whenever I try and correct someone over the internet on it, they just tell me to stop being a teacher/they don't need to use English/some other ludicrous excuse.
Take an extra 10 seconds out of your day to save me the time it takes for me to facepalm trying to read the thing. YOU'RE. THEIR.
It's also a sign that you didn't even bother to read what you wrote and it's clearly not important, whereas I actually reread what i've typed in case a) it looks stupid in which case I delete it or b) something can be misinterpretated (which happens frequently over teh interwebz).
Take an extra 10 seconds out of your day to save me the time it takes for me to facepalm trying to read the thing. YOU'RE. THEIR.
It's also a sign that you didn't even bother to read what you wrote and it's clearly not important, whereas I actually reread what i've typed in case a) it looks stupid in which case I delete it or b) something can be misinterpretated (which happens frequently over teh interwebz).