I’m a 22 yo with a BA in English, and I have absolutely no qualms whatsoever about omitting nonessential lettering and/or grammar in favor quick, efficient communication. A few years ago, I’d be right on board with the other grammar nazi’s that think “wat r u doin” somehow makes you less of a person, no excuses. But a couple linguistics classes and a few years of experience later, and I just can’t accept that anymore. To me, it’s all about target audience. If the intendee is able to understand what it is you’re trying to convey, I don’t see a need to dress your sentences up with pomp.
To add an anecdote, I used to play MMOs frequently, and in stressful raid-type situations where both focus is demanded and communication is pertinent, despite having little time in between other keyboard functions to type, grammar often goes out of the window. Because of this, efficient typing has taken over in some nonprofessional media. This goes for texting as well. I don’t have one of those nifty qwerty pad phones with unlimited character space for texting. Instead, I use a phone with a 160 character limit and a standard touch pad. Certain conditions make “ppl” the optimal choice.
We all use abbreviations on a day to day basis. Even on this board, people that pride themselves on their perfect grammar use abbreviations such as IMO, AFAIK, IANAL, etc. because everyone understands these and it’s become perfectly normative behavior. I don’t really think it’s that much difference from “text-talk” that so many people decry these days.
Ummmm, welcome to the 1990s? As ThirdCultureKid indicates, there’s fashions and trends, and kids are perfectly capable of writing things ‘correctly’ (whatever that means) when necessary.
As for predictive texting, this feature surely enhances spelling abilities, because only when one attempts to type a word correctly will the dictionary pick it up.
I’m sure you’re right that it is indeed about target audience. To me “wat r u doin” reads as “Watt roo doing?” So I got 1 out of 4 words correct without going back and puzzling it out.
But “ppl” is a common and accepted abbreviation. Maybe one day, “r u” will be a common and accepted abbreviation, but at this point, it’s only easily understood by a relatively small portion of the population.
It irks me mightily when I receive emails written in Txt (as I call that particular “language.”) I don’t like it in text messages, either because I don’t understand it too well, but at least it makes sense to use it in that context for the above-stated reasons. But email? No way. It takes me 4 times as long to figure out an email in Txt than it does to read one in plain English.
In other words, if you don’t KNOW that your target audience speaks Txt, don’t assume that they do!
