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Call me old fashioned… or call me an anal English major… that thinks the world is severely going retarded, ignorant and just plain lazy by using technology to blame for their lack of needing to learn to spell and communicate effectively.

I came across this article on “text and email lingo” that just poured pure rubbing alcohol in my already bleeding wound for the future.  I have to be honest, one of my many pet-peeves is when people use the ‘new-age-short-hand’ in texts and emails. Yes, it may take a bit longer when texting on a phone without a full keyboard… but for crying out loud… people are lazy enough these days, you can’t spell out the three letter word “too” and instead use the number “2?” Example: “can you pick me up 2?” I would spend who knows how much time trying to figure out if this person meant to pick them up at two o’clock… or pick them up a quantity of two… somethings… etc.

Which brings me to this thought… I think some people hide behind not knowing the difference between certain homophones so they result to pretending they are using ‘cutesy lingo.’ {Side note: Not knowing the difference between homophones; to, two, & too; there & their; who’s & whose; it’s & its; weather & whether… (I could be here all day) … really grinds my gears. I understand if you’re in a hurry and accidentally type something in a rush as a once in a while thing… hey, we’re all human. If I’ve ever re-read something I’ve written and have caught a mistake like that, I literally get nauseous.}

I digress… the point I think I was originally trying to make before I went off on this tangent is that this new way of communicating is not helping… it’s hurting. I shudder to think kids will literally start turning in papers at school that look something like this… “IMS but that Hitler guy wz a real PITA. OMG. L4R. FWIW, I would have totally said something 2 him.” I guess what’s worse, is if the teacher gives the paper back with “KUTGW” written on it. (For translation of that robotic mess, see the chart below the article.)

What does KUTGW mean?