I agree, and my post wasn’t to defend nor confound Fish’s post, merely to explain what I thought he/she meant.
That said, typing out ‘In my humble opinion’ or ‘I am not a lawyer’ takes a lot more effort than putting the ‘e’ at the end of ‘be’.
As for movie titles I’m not usually going to abbreviate say, Pulp Fiction to PF, unless I repeat the title several times in a post. But, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is definitely going to be LOTR: ROTK.
dingdingding.
Ironically enough I was going to make the point about message board posts being re-read myself, but after rewriting the post a couple of times I didn’t bother.
Also, possibly ironically, I normally find ‘l33t’ awful, but I was trying to see the other side (and couldn’t actually see any good arguments against a small number of abbreviations like ‘U’) - I obviously succeeded too well 
One thing that worries me is that originally I always used as correct language as possible. But then I realised txt and im didn’t really benefit, and no-one else did, so I stopped. If I frequented a msg-type board rather than a debate-type board, I’d probably be on the l33t side of the debate…
Well, yeah, agreed. Context. Decorum. Appropriate for the time and place. Whatever you want to call it. I would expect that phone-text is sent with many time-saving abbreviations. I’d encourage it, even. I’d be a fool to object to an abbreviation such as, oh, “SOS”. This isn’t a good place to practice Advanced Brevity, though.
Oh, and you pretty much got my point spot on, FilmGeek.
phi+3 +h3 g00d phi+3, br0+h3r! i’M b3hiNd j00 0N3 huNdr3d p3rc3N+. h0// @Ny0N3 ch00$3$ +0 +yP3 i$ +h3ir 0//N ch0ic3. i+z n0 0N3z bu$iN3$$ bu+ 0ur 0//N! n0+ 1i/<3 //3’r3 +yPiNg +0 0+h3r p30P13 @Ny//@y.
I’m not serious; I just wanted to type that way…
Wow. I actually was able to decipher that.
Well, I guess that settles it then. We should all type like that. After all, Necro Romancer got his (her?) point across, so isn’t that ALL that matters?
You’re Unix programmers, aren’t you? 
I think the overwhelming number of non-English speaking immigrants make an effort to learn and use English, in accordance with their means.
This effort distinguishes them from native English speakers who degrade the language by not even fucking trying to get it right.
Careful there, more than nine months left of the year, Ilsa. May I suggest a nomination?
As for Civil Defense. As one who’s not native with English, but fairly comfortable with it anyway may I say that your stance is complete and utter bullshit.
I don’t think using u makes you look dumb. It does make you look like a lazy bastard that doesn’t care. And were I to come across that in a post not dedicated to this stupidity, as it is with this thread, I’d just skip it. If it’s not important enough for you to communicate clearly, then it’s not important enough for me to try to decipher it.
No real dog in this fight, myself. I can tolerate such things without too much strain, but it certainly seems prudent to heed the opinions of those around you–even if you disagree with them. Many people here are making good points (some of which I hadn’t considered). Listening to them wouldn’t hurt.
This, however:
…gave me a chuckle. What are “LOLs and IANALs” if not intentional shortening?
Definitely true.
Gee, I don’t know about that. Do U know Jeffery Skilling?
I honestly don’t see what the big deal is. I have been thought of as a highly intelligent person no matter WHAT I use. U or You gets the point across and I don’t have any trouble equating them as the same thing nor do I have any trouble reading the two. OTOH I find AFAIK, FWIW, YMMV, SNAFU, SSDD, STFU and other acronyms annoying as HELL because I have to stop in my scanning and think (WTFDTM?) It’s more irritating than U/u ever thought about being. IMHO THEY show how inconsiderate and lazy SOME people are. JMMFO but I think this whole post is stupid. :wally
(DAMN that was painful to write!!! 
)
Okay, I’ll go out on a limb here: the OP doesn’t know how to type.
That’s it in a nutshell.
The reason he thinks substitution of the word you with the letter u is “easier” is because he can’t type; he’s a hunt and peck typist who uses two fingers and stares at the keyboard as he types.
I’ve been using a keyboard for many years. I have typed the word you so many times it’s become a habit. For me to use “u” to mean “you” would be a hindrance. I’ve typed the word so many times it has become hard-wired. To stop and use the letter “u” instead would only slow me down.
Not so the OP. He doesn’t have that problem because he doesn’t have any appreciable skill in typing. For this kind of typist, hitting “u” instead of typing “you” is easier. It’s just one key he has to locate on the keyboard and press, whereas the word “you” requires three times the work.
Of course, I may be completely full of shit, but…
Nah, I’m right. The OP just doesn’t know how to type.
Yes, things like ‘u’, ‘r’, etc. might be acceptable to some people, but consider the environment in which you use them. Say, in a game of Counter-Strike, it would be perfectly acceptable, because you might need to communicate in a very quick manner. Say, before your buddy takes one in the head from a camper.
However, this is a message board. There’s no hurry at all. People here appreciate proper use of grammar, spelling, and paragraphs (I could probably start a whole new Pit thread on paragraph use, but I digress).
Message boards have their own kind of anthropology. There are accepted acronyms here that would baffle users on another board, and vice versa. It took me an embarassing amount of time to figure out IANAL. But who here can tell me the significance of DYWYPI? LOL doesn’t get used around here much, WTF doesn’t either, and TMI means “this thread is going to be quite entertaining”.
Back to the use of ‘u’ and ‘r’ on message boards. The ones where most of the posters are using those on a regular basis tend to be on the bottom of the food chain. No ignorance being fought there, but you could probably find a “18-year old virgin cheerleader with no gag reflex” to chat up.
Moving up the chain a bit, there are boards where the use of ‘u’ and ‘r’ is either a) used as a joke or b) used frequently by those who get no respect, and often get banned quickly.
Now, this is the top of the food chain. Use of ‘u’ and ‘r’ is virtually unknown. Using those here is a bit like attending a wedding reception and plopping your nuts onto the mother of the bride’s plate: anything you say after you do that is probably going to get ignored.
Now that was a visual picture I did NOT need. :eek:
DYWYPI—what does that mean?!? I get that DY probably is “Do you” or “Does your” but after that I am stumped.
Civil Defense, the way in which you type is the only way fellow Dopers learn who you are and whether your posts are interesting. We only have your style of writing. No face, no body language, no eye contact. Just pixels on a screen.
It’s an image thing, man. It’s the same as wearing a three piece suit or flip-flops to work. Both can be appropriate given the right circumstances. I don’t want my investment counselor wearing flip-flops and I don’t want my surfboard maker wearing a 3-piece suit. Get it?
We are rather intolerant of the leetspeak type shorthand because it is most commonly used by pre-pubescent boys. In case you haven’t noticed, there isn’t much here to interest said pre-pubescent boys. Therefore, it’s easy to understand why a few select posters who insist on using “u” stand out like a sore thumb.
It’s NOT easier to read, no matter how much I see it. So stay at the top of the food chain. Sit back. Relax. No one’s going to make you sit in a corner. The only risk you have is that we simply won’t read your posts, k?
DYWYPI = Do You Want Your Pie, Isabelle?
DYWYPI = Do You Wish Your Penis Inserted?
So, tell me, when reading the post to which you replied with the above, how much difficulty did you have interpreting the meaning of “msg-board”?