Incoherent Scribblings

In Which I Bitch About Internet Speak

I will be the first to admit that even though I was an English (literature) major, my grammar is not always perfect. (I won’t even begin to discuss my spelling abilities here, but in word they are non-existent.) I don’t like being a grammar Nazi and in fact, after learning a second and third language I am pretty lenient on the grammar that I come across on the Internet because I know that a large majority of what I see is written by non-native speakers of English.

However…

The blatant bastardization of the English language that can be referred to as Internet speak has begun to bother me more and more every time that I run across it. I don’t notice it so much on the blogs that I visit, but it creeps up with ever more frequency on places like MySpace, Facebook, and the like.

I know it comes partly from the abbreviations that are semi-necessary when one uses text-messaging, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying. In particular, I am aggravated by im for I’m, ur for your, the idea that vowels are no longer necessary in words, this seemingly incessant need to add z instead of s to words to create the plural, the obvious misspelling of simple words such as the, and deliberately bad grammar such as i iz.

It isn’t that I can’t understand this pidgin language, I can. In fact, I am as guilty as the rest of us and readily admit that I (over)use lol, rotfl, btw and omg (to name just a few) when chatting with friends or posting to bulletin boards.

However, the point is when I write something of substance for the entire world to see, I (mostly) follow those maddening rules of English grammar and spelling that I learned in eighth grade English class and don’t understand why everyone else can’t do the same.

It really isn’t too much to ask, iz it?!