Saturday, March 19, 2011

Textspeak - Is it just me?

So, after much pushing and razzing and downright threatening from other writer friends, I finally joined Twitter (find me! @jennifer_august). It’s a lot of fun! I found my old editor from Red Sage <waves at TS>, started following some of my favorite authors (Yes, that includes Julia Quinn. Duh… What kind of rabid fan would I be otherwise?!) as well as Karen Hawkins, Shayla Black, Michelle Miles, Susan Gable, Diana Duncan and Sophie Oak.

I also, OF COURSE, have a feed from the most spectacular of all baseball teams, the Texas Rangers. I still am in heaven over last season and the World Series. Thanks guys. Though, I will like to say – quit trying to screw Michael Young over. That man should be nominated for Most Flexible Player EVER!!!

I don't always tweet, my friends, but I when I do, I spell correctly.
There are a  couple of other things I follow and, since I’m so new to this, I realize I have a lot to learn. But I find I’m having an extremely difficult time reading some posts because they use text speak. Yeah, yeah, 140 characters, blah, blah, blah. But you know what? That should be a challenge, not an excuse for idiotic writing. Seriously, it’s two freaking characters more to type your from ur. <shudder> And, in my mind, it looks and sounds stupid. I mean, ignorant stupid. Like a backwoods porch held together with chicken wire and cow manure. Or those hanging truck testicles. That kind of ridiculous.

It’s a daily chore for me and I find myself skimming posts that begin with UR or something along those lines.
I will pony up here, though. Recently, said former editor had a post that made me both cringe and laugh. To quote “Must. Kill. Dangling. Participle.” I have such a problem with those, I was surprised she didn’t suggest I seek counseling and a 12-step program. But still, all my words were spelled correctly, even if they were dangling.

Onward and upward, I suppose. I shall deal with it as long as I can, but I know my irritation is going to grow with each post and one day, I’ll just snap and WHAM! hit that unfollow button. *sigh*
As the mother of a horrible speller, I may be a bit more sensitive to this sort of thing but it still grates on my nerves. What about you? Are you okay with it or does it make you want to perpetrate mayhem on the poster?
Mayhem? Did someone call me?


Happy correct spelling,
Jennifer August

10 comments:

  1. Dangling...like those hanging truck testicles. LOL!

    I haven't been a good Twitterer. Tweeter. Whatever. But I probably use only real words and not textspeak in tweeting.

    I will confess, as you know from expreience, that I will sometimes use textspeak in actualy text messages. But not as much as my kid does.

    I also have to confess -- I'm a horrible speller and always have been. When I was a kid, my mother always used to yell at me, "Look it up in the dictionary!" To which I would reply, "How can I look it up when I don't know how to spell it?" LOL. You have to admit, I had a point.

    My mother found me a phonetical-to-proper-spelling dictionary. Then I wasn't allowed to use that excuse anymore. LOL. (Smart woman, my mother.)

    Anyhoo...I shudder more at the grammar errors I find on sites like big media news sites. I mean, come on...the people writing for them are supposedly real journalists. I cringe when I see some of the stuff they put up on their sites, especially since as a former elementary teacher, I used teach those very grammar skills to second and fourth grade students!

    It could be the end of the English language as we know it!

    Save the English language! Resist textspeak! (except, you know, once in a while in actual texts. LOL.)

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  2. HA! And there's no edit button here, either, and I transposed letters in experience. Sigh. And lost an l in actually.

    I think EVERYTHING, from Blogger to Facebook, should also be forced to include an EDIT button. This way, we can also teach the next generation that mistakes can be fixed.

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  3. :) Excellent suggestions and if I thought it would help, I would try to find that dictionary and give it to the kiddo. Alas...
    The one that kills me is lose/loose. Seriously, when in the heck did someone decide to misplace something had two Os? Dude...
    One of my cringe-worthy tweet reads the other day involved this "sentence" (word used lightly) "2 b the best U can b, UR n need of help." WTF? Translation, please? Puke inducing, that's what it is!

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  4. I teach college students transcription. They are forever using incorrect words, such as your for you're and effect for affect. Sometimes I wonder if we will lose all of our language due to the "Who cares?" attitude.

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  5. Jennifer,
    My daughter is a Socio Linguist, so I have learned to be accepting of various dialects within American English. I actually get the abbreviated word forms, ;-) and I thought the tweet example you gave was great. ;-) What great imagination! Not that I can speak the tweet language, nor have I started tweeting yet. I may have to take it up soon though. I find I misspell words when I'm tired. I think it has something to do with being a little dyslexic. :-) Doesn't take away from the desire to write stories, however.

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  6. I don't enjoy Twitter as well either. It's way less personal than Facebook and most times I feel like I'm out there just talking away to myself. Like back when I was in High School and I craved the "popular kids" attention... but got ignored.

    Plus, as you can tell from this comment, I am known by my beloved friends Jennifer August and Susan Gable (hi!) as "The Wordy Girl." And that 140 characters thing just a KILLER. Wretched, I tell you! *G*

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  7. Interetsing post, Jen and good luck with Twitter. I'll have to adventure over there. I'm with you on correct grammer. My father used to circle my misspelled words in letters I wrote him with red pen. He'd send the letters back to me and make me correct them and send it back to him. Definitely made me learn better because I hated him finding my mistakes! I know, now we have to learn a whole new language!

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  8. Jen, I definitely agree with you! Those twitter spellings creep into emails. I fear upcoming generations will set the English language back several hundred years. I don't enjoy twitter much, except for Bill Crider's tweets. He is funny.

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  9. Great post, Jen! I'm just getting feet wet with twitter, but I love it. So much fun.

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