The Anal Retentive Thread (Or so I'm told)

[TasteyPies]

"when r u guys going 2 di" is pretty hard to read.

To who? I can read that easily

All but DI...whats DI?

[Cloud_99]

I always try and speak in full and proper English, with all my grammar, punctuation and spellings correct, but sometimes I make spelling mistakes as do others we're all human, so that sort of thing I don't mind.

What I hate is people who abbreviate things to such an extent that no one can read it. And don't get me started on l33t speak that's just irritating.

But basically if I can read it then it's fine.

[Jebus]

Even if I can read it, it irritates the hell out of me. I can't stand to read it.

When children are taught to spell they are taught "Hello, how are you doing?" Not "helo how r u????" You were brought up with proper English (if you're American then it may be incorrect, but at least its coherent) so I expect you to use it.

[Sacred Phoenix]

As long as I can read it and there are minimal spelling errors. However when people use the wrong tense of a word or put the wrong their, there or they're, that drives me nuts. I try to do my best when typing, and you won't catch me ever using numbers for words, cause that's just dumb, honestly how much longer would it take you to type an extra few letters? :whaaa:

[TasteyPies]

Liek whie wood u h8 taht? teh wurds r koo.

[TasteyPies]

Are u evn lisening to me? its as if im talking to teh wal No seriously, I more respect people if good grammar they have

I think it's better to have good grammar because if I start talking like that, and handing in essays and term papers with that kind of grammer, I would fail with flying colors.

Omfg liek taht iz soh TRU!

But most people know not to use bad grammer on homework

An meybee sum peepull dun wahnt reespecht?

[-N-]

Your title is a fragment.

We had the Grammar Gestapo for a while, and everyone knows how that turned out. So, don't be an EGGhead.

[Storm]

People should use forums as a method of improving their writing skills, not making them worse. I don't understand the logic in using crappy internet slang. This would never happen if we were all Vulcans.

[Dixie]

Please don't do this:

U R TEH HAUTTIE BOM BECAZ I IZ LIKN U SO PLZ GO OOT WIT ME AND IF U DONT I WIL H8 U 4EVR LOL!!!!!!!

I think stuff like that is spam.

[Giga Guess]

I can TOLERATE anything, so long as I don't need a translator. I am horribly anal about my spelling though. If I notice anything wrong, or misspelled, I always go to Edit (Admittedly, some escape my watchful eye, too). I agree that it's interesting to have a variety of posting styles, but like I said, when you spend a half hour translating a post, it's not an enjoyable experience. And that's what this is all about. Fun! So I guess it's up to the user, but know that I usually just skim over 1337 speak.

[Kirkpatrick]

Typos don't bother me too much, because, by definition, they are just unintentional mistakes, but if a post is full of them, it shows a carelessness on the poster's part - it really doesn't take much time to look over the post (I just fixed 'take', and 'just' ).

leetspeak and chatspeak (or whatever 'r' and 'u' and '2' fit into) just bother me, because there's no need for them; when I have to read a post three or four time to understand it, I get irritated.
Also, the short forms (r, u, etc.[]) don't make a person sound as intelligent as one with proper grammar and spelling, and it seems kind of disrespectful that someone doesn't take the time to type out an extra two letters and make their post easier to read and comprehend.

But really, as long as the forums aren't littered with it, it doesn't bother me much.

[-N-]

I dunno, The Signpost's leetspeak in Steve Martin's "L.A. Story" was pretty funny.

"R U OK? DON'T MAKE ME WASTE LETTERS."

[Nait]

The world would be better with spelling reform!

In many ways, most of the short-cuts made by people when they write in chat-speak are LOGICAL and consistent. Unlike English orthography, which is a mess. Like an old dog who's blind, can't hear, has pneumonia and wails in its sleep, but no one BOTHERS to get it to the vet. That's what English orthography is.

Chat-speak is like a puppy. Kinda the same as the old dog, but at least its FRESH and can learn new tricks.

But I'd rather have a cat, which is spelling reform. Too bad Englishs speakers are so entrenched in their belief that spelling is a sacred cow that they never will get around to it. Five hundred years from now, people when people say:

/a eo e jo to:in/

they will still spell it "Hey, how are you doing", which is /hei hau a: j<s>u</s>: d<s>ui</s>N/ today, approximately.

[Meat Puppet]

I hate it when people over-use 'teh'. One admin at some chatboard somewhere had come to replacing every "the" for "teh" in his sentences purposely. It just got so annoying I had to complain about it and get banned