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Shorthand Iz 4 Suckas

Posted by NWSO • January 9, 2009 • Printer-friendly

white-out

I guess we can blame technology—in addition to poor education, but based on society’s growing reliance on digital advancements basic communication skills are getting shot to all hell. Ironically, this came up during an email thread with my homegirls Tanisha and Mary. The ladies and I got to talking about how shorthand was a major turn off. Finally, Mary huffed (digitally of course), “Can you PLEASE address grown people's inability to spell words via aim/text conversation.”

At first I thought Mary was referring to basic shorthand like, “R U outta UR mind?” I know I'm guilty of employing similar writing styles via aim/text, because I’m usually typing on the go or with one hand. I didn't see anything wrong with that—especially since both Tasha and Mary know that I'm an educated individual with a grasp of the written word.

Mary proceeded to clarify herself further: "I am a grown woman and I do NOT want to have a conversation with someone always using "dat" instead of "that" or "iz" instead of "is." What's wrong with the correct spelling? OMG. It's so annoying trying to have a somewhat grown, stimulating, keep-busy-@-work aim conversations with someone who is talking like a 14 year old. LOL."

Okay, now I was finally seeing what Mary and Tanisha were talking about. Purposefully abbreviating words is one thing, but total ignorance and over "ebonicating" (yeah, I just made that one up) your dialogue is another thing altogether. With so much courtship occurring over aim/text these days, it’s important to put your best foot forward in every way possible because I have to admit that it does raise an eyebrow when I see that a sister can't spell. The occasional typo, like typing "teh" instead of "the," is cool but messages filled with straight up undecipherable gibberish is a major red flag. The last thing anyone with some sort of sense wants to read is a message like this: "Yo wuz good lahtr. Eye real-e wanna cu l@tr 2nite cuz I mizz u. U so speshall, so speshall, so speshall, so speshall. LOL."

So what's peoples take on shorthand and spelling errors on aim/text? Should some folks get a pass because they're on the run when they're typing? Or is there no excuse for bad sentence structure? What's worse, not being able to spell or not being able to talk in person? Would you stop dealing with someone if their grasp of the written language was horrible? Any other text/aim pet peeves?

Speak your piece…

typo

Tagged as: AIM, communication, dating, instant message, shorthand, text

V-Lo

Personally, I feel that purposely spelling words wrong is annoying. I use to talk to this guy that would spell bored 'boared' all the time. Its very unattractive. The occasional typo is accepted, especially if you are on AIM and usually don't have an innate urge to spell check every sentence or if you are texting on the go. But if you are writing an email or some such thing constant misspelling is not OK. Typing 'speshall' or 'boared' instead of special and bored is not col. It portrays ignorance. If you profess to be grown then spell like you are grown.
http://www.virgoreppinwpforlife.blogspot.com asj

i think some errors are bound to happen if you are in a rush or you are lazy at the moment. but i personally think that frequent errors make a person look stupid and unattractive. especially if they do it on purpose. i think not being able to spell is worse because in person you say things more in syllables so the person will be able to figure out what you are saying(..hopefully) i think i would tell them that i dont like when they talk like that but i dont think it would be enough to stop dealing with them as long as they can talk well in person. my only pet peeve is people who come up with their own code words and you can barely decipher what they are saying.
http://girlshesgottahaveit.blogspot.com/ She’s Gotta Have It

Most of us have grown up in an age where instant communication is everything, and sometimes you just don't have the time to spell out everything, so shorthand is acceptable. You just need to know when to turn it off (eg. publishing a blog or sending an email at work). Misspelling words on purpose n TyPin Lyk dIz, however, is unacceptable at any age. I can't believe that there are adults on the Internet who type that way. It's actually harder to read text like that than it is to read whole words spelled correctly, so that needs to stop. Some people don't understand that what they do and say is a reflection of them. Someone who tYpEs LyK DiZ is not saying "I'm a busy Generation Yer on the go". It says "I'm a dumb ass adult." Period.

I think it would be easier to show a person how to write properly than to teach them how to speak, but I'd rather not deal with either.
sohoissooverated

Lmao so speshall so speshall so speshall
distinguishedgentlewoman

Let me conversate with y'all on this one. Yes, I used that word on purpose to demonstrate my pet peeve. I HATE when someone uses that non-word in any context. In fact, I literally cringe if I'm conversing with a guy and hear that roll off his tongue. UGH!!!!!!!!

On the other stuff, let's face it, we are all human. Spelling mistakes in a casual conversation are bound to happen, especially on the run. And I'm not bothered by them. However, constant and deliberate spelling and grammar errors make folks look stupid. And “ebonicating” words on occasion to prove a point is not so bad, but doing it on a regular basis is straight-up annoying. Especially for people of a certain age.

Naked: I love that word, “ebonicating”. I'm gonna be using it from now on. And starting today, I'm campaigning to have it added to Webster.
Eblu

***I had to resist the urge to do grammar/spell/tense check while reading comments***

If you are sending a message on a gadget, I believe shortcuts like '2 for two, to, too' and 'u for you' and 'r for are', etc. is ok. The blatant going out of your way to misspell a word on purpose is very annoying.

When I read online profiles and see total disregard for syntax, spelling and language, I SMH.

We know that this format, a blog, is really for entertainment purposes and people tend to be lax on crossing 'Ts and dotting Is'. It's to be expected.

NWS, I'm going to send you an email I received yesterday that fits this topic. They say a picture is worth a thousand words~
http://thesource.com star

I'm with sohoissooverated...rotflmao @ so speshall, so speshall, so speshall.

I'm not so mad at short hand, but I'm definitely angered by the varying degrees of ignorance. And it's freaking infectious! Once you start texting someone who communicates in that manner, you find yourself either a) accepting it from others more and more, or b) incorporating the lingo into your own digital lexicon (subconsciously), which totally sucks.

As does relationships carried mostly in cyberspace...

And does anyone call anymore?
http://www.nakedwithsockson.com NakedWithSocksOn.com

Hey Star,

I actually spoke on the topic of no one calling here:

http://www.nakedwithsockson.com/2008/10/22/texting-vs-talking-how-come-you-never-call-me/

Check it out
Anonymous

Thank you for addressing this! I think this form of short hand was introduced when phones were not eqipped with "QWERTY" key pads. Now everyone has all 26 letters readily available and easy to use on their phone, so there is no excuse. My friends always laugh at me saying my texts are like novels. But I am sure I will never get caught out there sending an e-mail blast at my job with a whole bunch of unnecessary "abbreviations".

It is just like speaking, in the time it takes you to "ebonicate"(Thanks NWSO) a word or phrase you could have said it properly. My mom is an English teacher who is distressed every day when grading papers because nothing her students write makes sense anymore. It is a known fact that the way you speak, is the way you will write and vice versa. We as a society need to step our game up.
DAVIDA

OMG! Thanks for addressing this problem. My biggest pet peeve is for someone to type cum instead of come!! Its just rude and nasty!
DefCon4

I am with Eblu, with most of us constantly on the go, its not always the easiest thing to type out every single word especially when there are universal substitutes and acronyms to replace words such as the ones Eblu mentioned. However its just plain lazy (and inconsiderate to the readers eyes & brain power) to replace a word ie "is" with "iz". I mean honestly they are both 2 letters so correct spelling wouldn't take any longer than the incorrect spelling. "That" instead of "dat" would require only one extra letter, and I'm pretty sure the 0.5 seconds it would take to push the correct letter would not affect anyone’s productivity... I could be wrong.
DefCon4

I dated someone recently 30+3 years old that ebonicated his text messages (and this was our most consistent form of communication when we were not around each other) and it drove me insane!! I really couldn’t understand it. LIKE SERIOUSLY.
La Professora Hielo

For those who know me, I am typo queen on text, AIM, and BBM, BUT as writing is a job requirement for what I do on a daily basis, it's apparent that I know my shit and realize there is a time and place for the foolishness that is "ebonicating" (and I'm just lazy when I'm typing a mile a minute on all this chit chat shit as my sis calls it) and it's place ain't all up in our conversation ESPECIALLY when i don't know you like that.

To agree with all those above, mistakes are cool, I won't be the pot calling the kettle black, but all that other shit that they need to create a separate dictionary for in order to decipher what they hell dude just wrote is UNACCEPTABLE. And if you can't type AND can't speak...sorry..to the left to the left boo.

LMAO at "So Speshell"...I wish a nucca would! and someone probably has...SMH...
StoryofaWoman

I am so glad that we are discussing this topic, I thought I was the only one. Do you know what I really hate-have you you guys read profiles where the person types exactly like they talk: Hey wassup jsut tryin to meet some independent women on here gold diggers need not apply so anywaz back to what I was sayin.....This kills me. I do appreciate it cause I know that this is exactly how they talk....... Because I am still in school and word process all the time I can't program my brain to use shorthand a lot. But it definitely is unattractive when you come across a guy that can't seem to spell. And in regards to CONVERSATE, guys kill me with this because they think it makes them sound educated......
Emily

Yea, it does get a little annoying. Especially if I have to read that crap five times to understand the text gibberish!
http://counterfeitparadise.blogspot.com crystal

i'm not 15 and neither are you. let's write like grownups whose parents sent to somebody's school.

there's been lots of comments about conversate and the like. but apparently according to folks over at oxford english dicitonary, conversate is indeed a word and will be included in the next edition. who knew?

for all us word whores here's an awesome interview tnc did with a big wig at oed about what counts as a 'real' word. there's even mention of our favorite, irregardless. loves it!

http://tanehisicoates.theatlantic.com/mt/mf-tb.cgi/40558
AMR

My story is I was having an initial text message with a gentleman I met...and he spelled something just WRONG...I wish I remembered the word but for example if he said "Im inosent"...I told him ..."Can you please spell that last word correctly?"...he wrote back that he could spell...and I said "Sure." He ended up spelling it correctly but it took a few minutes and maybe he was busy...but to me that's not like saying "friendz" or "n2"...I was completely turned off (I feel like he asked someone or did a quick spell check)...I'll never know...but I'll take abbreviations even "dumb ones", but I have run into a few which were unacceptable and simply ended it there. I think it speak volumes!
http://antistat.blogspot.com carlitomachete

depends on my mood...

but at my age (ahem. let's call it "old enuf to know better than to spell it "enuf," but still young enuf to get away with it), i've learned how to live w/ people's idiosyncracies -- to a point.

case in point (as per distinguisedgentlewoman above) the use of "conversate" doesn't irk me so much these days b'cuz*** --judgmental mu'fucka i can be-- i know it doesn't come so much from laziness as from a "logical" derivative. in grammar (and linguistics, i imagine) the process is known as "back-formation," where the verb form of a word is derived from the noun.

long way of saying that as a lover of words, i choose my battles, basically.

as for texts and IM's, shorthand doesn't bug me at all, but i do find all the 3's for E's and @'s for A's and whatever other quirky spellings annoying.

BUT... i admit, that again, at my age, the only folks w/ who (whom? lol) i rap that use those types of constructions are teenage/young adult nieces, mainly.

what irks me more are grown-ass women w/ monikers like "sexxxybeeyotch4u2NV" who can't give better opening lines than "what's good, pa."

my two cents.

more like three, fuck it. keep the change.

-- c

**that's a trademarked carlito spelling for ya ass right there.
http://antistat.blogspot.com carlitomachete

couple misplaced quotation marks in my prev. post.

how much am i docked for THAT, ladies?

lol...
http://www.missfitstyles.com missfit styles

it wrecks me to no end when people misspell things. sometimes you can tell when people are typing too fast. but then you have the ones that you jus know can't spell to save their life.

and forget about the z's of the 90's: the boyz, iz, biznizz, shiz. omg that shit is so wack!!!!!!!
http://www.missfitstyles.com missfit styles

omg i just mispelled misspell. i love it. lols.
http://antistat.blogspot.com carlitomachete

@ missfit: if lol = laugh out loud, what does lols = ?

laughs out loud?

laugh out loud more than once?

help me out...

LMFAO!!
http://nwso.net NWSO

And for the record I'm guilty of spelling "cool" as "qool" and "thanks" as "thanx". Sorry, it's just something that I do purposely. So any texter/IMer friends are just gonna have to deal with it
La Professora Hielo

Best Comment award goes to Carlitomachete.

no points lost for punctuation

double points for
- “logical” derivative...and
- idiosyncracies
DefCon4

LMAO @ CARLITOMACHETE...

We all have minor indiscretions, and considering most of us grew up typing on something.. typwrite, computer, 2-way pager we all do it so quickly that we often make the occasional typo & such or sometimes your brains working faster then your typing and you might leave out a word or misuse the word coarse for course (ha which is something I have to often check myself on LOL).. its the other nonsense and non-spelling of words that’s the real doooooozy.

I'm just glad to know I'm not alone in this!

Its a shame that so many people have an education and still want to act uneducated!!
DefCon4

LMAO.

thanks a million for this one Mr. Socks.
aa

LmAao at u so special...I'm done with you, but totally agree with your people's. I'm on my berry and I'm still typing fairly well, I'm sure guys can put the same effort "on the go" or at work sitting at a damn desk. Complete sentences are a maaaajor turn on
distinguishedgentlewoman

Crystal: I knew it would happen, "conversate" being added to the dictionary. In fact, I was having an argument with a coworker in October saying that it would eventually make it to a dictionary, and he doubted me. Ha, sadly, I'm having the last laugh. Or cry.
thisbug

Wow. I can't tell you how much this gets my goat. I don't mind abbreviations here & there, but misspellings for no good reason just irritates me. I just ranted about this a few days ago. It has less to do with being 'grown' and more to do with behaving like the educated person that they truly are. Since when is it cool to sound dumb? I can't stand it. Share my pain. Love the new site, btw.

http://thisbugslife-in-words.blogspot.com/2009/01/lets-talk-about-text-baby.html
VOD

I agree with Tanisha and Mary.

From a proud spelling/grammar/pronunciation nazi.
ivi

I am a texter(not a work I know) who misspells words for speed and space of course. However I can not stand when people text me, IM and email me with words like iz, dat, newayz...grrrr. Email is for whole words okay. Now I may type n/e1 or ne1 in place of anyone for space saving sake in text messages, I mean you only get so many characters but you should never use shorthand in email and never misspell a word in a test that have the same amount of letters like iz and is and kool for cool, like come on are you serious?
LaVonda

I agree with Eblu (a commenter above). Abbreviations are fine--"tht" (that), "2" (two), and even "LOL." But Ebonics, poor grammar and misspelled words? That is a huge pet peeve. I don't think it's cute reading emails and texts from adults who haven't grasped the English language. It's our native tongue for heaven's sake!!
Carla

I agree with the ladies, it is definitely a turn off. There is no excuse for a grown person to not know how to spell or converse like they have nothing more than a fourth grade education.
Dr. BluInBK

I know that I am educated (have the pedigree and degrees to prove it). But, spelling has never been my strong point. Hell, my major is not English! If the spelling is really bad, I will wonder.
MsDrama4lyfe

I say internet texting/communications is much like a job interview with someone that youa re just meeting; and since many need improvements with their professional skills, I can see where the disconnect lies.

Just because this is the internet doesnt mean that you can slack off. And if you are indeed educated (not meaning degrees or whatnot, but knowledgeable) then speaking in proper syntax/structure/form should come quite naturally. It irks the living daylights out of me for a guy to tell me that I am stuck up and full of myself when I correct his grammar. I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but if you deem to love women....figure out what the real women like. I raise my hand for Intelligence. The smarter you are the sexier you become. Once you get comfortable with one another....then bring out the nonsense. But much like guys want to know if they are sexually compatible with the female that they are with.....we women want to know that we are intellectually compatible with the males that we encounter. Because I be damned if my sons coming out shouting "Mama i'm is hungree shawty!"
MsDrama4lyfe

P.S..... the word is CONVERSE!!! COnversate will never be inducted into the Websters Dictionary or Dictionary.com. And the only reason it passed your spell check on WORD was because you ADDED IT!!!!
da ThRONe

If a female is so anal "shorthand" texting bother her she clearly iz not tha 1 4 me(LOL)!

I enjoy life and the people in it I could care less about something so unimportant!
illusion466

ur all a bunch of hypocrits. the only time i completly miss spell words is to add effect and emotion through my text, and no one i know replaces S's with Z's, thats just for fags,

but then again, i am only 16 XD