image by Eliacim Lopes

I’m a grammar freak – anybody who knows me can attest to that.   My sister, who writes a blog called Grammar Pulis (yes, the spelling is intentional), will attest to that fact too.  No, I don’t claim to have perfect grammar – I’m sure, for example, that some of you can point out at least three errors in this post.  I do, however, try to make myself as clear as possible.

In order to make myself as clear as I can, one of things I do is make sure I spell things correctly.  Yes, you may find the odd typo in my writing, but I try to keep those to a minimum.  Heck, I’ve even activated the option to check spelling as I type on Firefox.

Of course, some forms of media make it slightly harder to be so particular.  Short Message Service (SMS), as the name implies, puts a limit on the number of characters sent in a single message.  Toss in the fact that you only have 8 keys to input 26 letters and one can almost forgive the atrocious spelling in SMS messages.

Note that I said almost.

evn f u cn undrstnd d nd r dsyr 2 kp tngs shrt, u cnt ignor d fct dt rdng grsly abbrvtd msgs s a pain.  hvng a 160 chr lmt sux, bt fns 2day cn send mltpl msgs neway.

Even if you can understand the need or desire to keep things short, you can’t ignore the fact that reading grossly abbreviated messages is a pain.  Having a 160 character limit sucks, but phones today can send multiple messages anyway.

Still, that’s not the point of this whole rant.  Like I said, I can almost forgive the shortcuts people make when typing messages on their phones.  What I can’t forgive, however, is doing the same thing when using full keyboards on their computers.

Yes, this goes out to those people (even though I know you’re not reading this anyway) who insist on using “text-speak” on forums (or fora?), in instant messages, on their own blogs, and anywhere else on the net.  You have all 26 letters and then some at your fingertips.  Is spelling words properly really that difficult?

xcpt 4 twitter n few odr apps, dr s no lmt n d # f chrs u cn use n d net. dr’s no nd 2 rplc a 2 r 2 wd 2 2 elmn8 all vwls frm ur wrds. u wnt b chrgd more 4 splng wrds prprly, so y nt do dt? pls mk use f d full kbrd n frnt f u – its nt dt dfclt.

Except for Twitter and a few other apps, there is no limit on the number of characters you can use on the net.  There’s no need to replace a “to” or “too” with “2″ or to eliminate all vowels from your words.  You won’t be charged more for spelling words properly, so why not do that?  Please make use of the full keyboard in front of you – it’s not that difficult.

Please excuse my pathetic attempts at ‘text-speak’ above.  When sending SMS messages, I rely on T9 Text Input instead of multitap and add frequently used words to my phone’s dictionary.