Ugh! This weird phonetic crap that my daugher and her friends use to email back and forth makes me crazy. “Wat r u dng?” “Skul iz boring.” “Wat tim du the boiz play tday?” :cursing:
Honestly, spelling is so ingrained in me (although I’m not very good at it and I’m always goofing up your vs you’re — of course, I know the difference I just start typing in a hurry and it goofs up) that it took me three times to get the above examples “correct.”
The Girl and I were fooling around on the computer one day and I was typing a funny email to her friend and Girl said, “Mom, she’ll know it’s you. I’d never type it that way.” I shot back, “Oh, yeah, it doesn’t look as if an illiterate was at the keyboard.” She didn’t think it was particularly funny.:evil:
I don’t mind the “g2g” for “got to go” or “syl” for “see you later” because it’s a shorthand of actual words that works same as ROLOL or BTW. It’s the blatant bastardization of the spelling that makes me crazy and I think it’s because I’m concerned that as ingrained as it is for me to spell decently and write a coherent sentence (most of the time) it will become equally ingrained in these kids to think, write, speak in this crap.
We had a secretary in our business a couple of years ago and she had made an office supply list. She’d written, “scizers.” I asked her what it was because I truly had no idea. Scissors. I looked at her and said, “You did graduate from high school, right?” :roll: Maybe it’s a difficult word to spell, but I’d have looked it up in a dictionary before I gave it to my boss that way. For sweet Pete’s sake, type it into Word and have the spell check give you the correct spelling. This poor girl didn’t have a clue it was the wrong spelling. (And no, she didn’t last long at the job.)
The deal is, the first time any of this phonetic “stuff” bleeds over into one of Girl’s school reports, that’s it. No more in email. Done. Finished.:fryingpan:
I’m done. Thank you. 
I’m climbing down now.
And the thing is, it will bleed over. But I know what you mean. Last night I proof read the kids’ reports and cringed. Spelling errors out the wazoo. :fryingpan:
Comment by Rhonda — February 28, 2007 @ 8:40 am
I read a newspaper article just a few weeks ago about this problem and apparently it IS bleeding over into kids’ schoolwork. The blatant bastardization as you call it drives me crazy too. I do like the shorthand — brb = be right back, and IMHO = in my humble opinion, etcetera. But scizers?
Comment by Marilyn — February 28, 2007 @ 9:37 am
Rhonda and Marilyn, it’s that “bleed over” that’s downright frightening. How will these kids manage at a college or in a corporate or medical or academic world that doesn’t tolerate this? I guess they’ll manage.
Comment by Jennifer — February 28, 2007 @ 9:54 am
Jen, here’s one for you. I was going over my 8th Grader’s!!! report last night and came across the word “pacifically.”
I’m like, “Son, what the heck is this?”
“You know, Mom. Like when you tell me that you ‘pacifically’ told me to do something.”
Have I mentioned that I’m killin’ myself paying for private school and this is what I’m pacifically getting for my $$$?
:wallbash: :fryingpan:
Comment by Rhonda — February 28, 2007 @ 9:59 am
Bless your heart!! At least I’m not paying anything more than taxes through the nose for my Girl’s pisspoor eductation. At that point I would’ve become a raving lunatic (of course, it really doesn’t take much to send me skewing that way!). :cursing:
Comment by Jennifer — February 28, 2007 @ 10:51 am
I’ve decided that I’m going to make reading here mandatory. Doesn’t matter if you don’t like to read. You’re going to do it. Period.
My kids aren’t going to be happy.
Comment by Rhonda — February 28, 2007 @ 11:00 am
It does bleed into school work. I get Freshmen Comp papers with that crap in it–even after we’ve had The Talk about my odd insistance on actual English words only in all papers.
Of course, I make them use real words and punctuation in thier emails to me as well. I’m your *ENGLISH* teacher, for crying out loud. I *expect* punctuation like I expect air to be there. (And they just don’t understand why it’s not a good idea to send emails that bear no grammatical resemblence to English to their English teacher when they’re trying to convince her to increase a grade… oh, the irony.)
Comment by Kimberly — February 28, 2007 @ 11:57 am
My general rule of thumb is that if they can’t write English properly, they aren’t allowed to write a ruined version. I despise the purposeful spelling twists. What drives ME crazy is when adults use it, lol. (Yup, it shows up on the boards.) *beats head on table*
Dee
Comment by Dee — February 28, 2007 @ 12:39 pm
Rhonda, I’ve reached this same conclusion. Despite the wail of, “But I HATE to read!), which is SO painful to me, I implemented this yesterday. 30 minutes. and the book was promptly abandoned when the timer went off. :wallbash:
Kimberly, apparently they lack logic right along with spelling and grammar skills. :fryingpan:
Are we not talking about readers and writers who show up on these boards, Dee? For crying out loud. I’ll head bang with you. :wallbash: :wallbash:
Comment by Jennifer — February 28, 2007 @ 12:52 pm
Comment by Sheryl M — February 28, 2007 @ 1:14 pm
LOL, I’m afraid of what it means when the board members use it. Thankfully, not the authors. So, it must be readers. Or just the folks who wish they were readers….who knows?
Comment by Dee — February 28, 2007 @ 8:42 pm
Hugs, Sheryl. THat’s got to be so frustrating for both of you.
LOL, Dee! I’m hoping it’s not board members. :happy2:
Comment by Jennifer — February 28, 2007 @ 9:00 pm