Man. I love the stuff. Not for time-saving reasons though - I mean, I'd feel like punching myself if I typed that crazy language. But it does wonders for your self-esteem, seeing your typing up against somebody elses.
"Ha! I'm *way* smarter than this guy! Look at his terrible spelling!"
I can't stand shorthand. I'm going to be terrible in college when I have to take notes quickly because it took me years and years before I would start using 'w/' instead of 'with' when I am in a hurry.
I have only two friends on MSN that overuse IM shorthand (I'm very lucky that most of my friends know how to spell correctly), and when I can no longer stand to try and figure out what they are saying I just tell that I need them to write legibly because I can't read what they are writing.
If I quote someone on here that used IM lingo I usually correct it in the quote.
Most of the people in my English class who use IM lingo have no idea how to spell correctly, or where to add a comma, or when to end a sentence. They are just horrible at the class and they try to use their computer language skills in their essays and can't figure out why they get poor grades. I agree with whoever said that they write their posts like an essay. I try to do that, except sometimes the post just flows better with the occasional "gonna" and "kinda."
becker said this in post #30 : I don't think IM makes you dum ......
I think it's just another step in our evolution.
The old and still in use Citizen"s Band Radios uses numbers to communicate with each other.
A CB radio is your best friend when you are traveling on Interstates. The truckdrivers are always chatting and warn each other about "Bears" and locations. They are great when you need directions. But you better know the lingo.
IM language serves to save time and money for the users.
Nothing dumb about that.
I think that's a good point, every industry and sub-culture has it's own jargon.
My b/f does 3D modelling and he goes on about things like "greebles" and "nernies" which is gibberish tio me, but to people in the know it's a term for little things you put on big things to make them seem bigger (or something).
if you're not into IM, you don't need to know the language, if you're not into HTML, you don't need to know the language, etc, etc, etc.
Pippin said this in post #32 : I can't stand shorthand. I'm going to be terrible in college when I have to take notes quickly because it took me years and years before I would start using 'w/' instead of 'with' when I am in a hurry.
Trust me, when you start taking massive amounts of notes in a short period of time, you should have NO problem using shorthand. Hell, I've nearly created my own language.
Spell checker makes you dumb as well. Because you start relying more on it rather then the proper spelling of words. Easier to just let spell checker do it for you
10-01-2005 03:29 AM
