Aaron: Eeek! It’s kind of disturbing both that the officer didn’t understand what the word meant and that he would pull the guy over for a bumper sticker.

Yeah, things like “brb” don’t bother me either, just because they’re handy. One thing I never understood was shortening “anyone” to “ne1″—you aren’t even shortening it all that much at that point!

One of the things I liked about the “Grammar & Style at Your Fingertips” book is that it pointed out where people often shortcut a rule or another in the name of readability or effective writing, and where this is generally acceptable vs. where it isn’t.

I too wish there was a neutral personal pronoun. I tend to handle this by using “he” in some pieces and “she” in others, more or less at random. Maybe that isn’t ideal, but it’s better than nothing.

An old English professor of mine had a bumpersticker that read “Support your local rhetorician!” Once, a cop thought it was derogatory somehow and pulled him over.

I don’t mind reasonable shorthand, like “brb”, but I’m annoyed when a person doesn’t adjust his or her language for the audience. If someone obviously isn’t familiar with your shorthand and jargon, then stop using them.

I try to pay attention to my grammer and punctuation while writing, but I ignore conventions when I disagree with them. It seems that our Ivy League overlords sometimes choose aesthetics over good sense. Regardless of what grammarians say, periods and commas should go outside quotation marks when the quoted text contains no such punctuation, because that’s what makes sense.

Also, I think it’s curious that “I” is always capitalized while other pronouns are not. Of course, that’s one rule I only break when writing lyrics or poetry, because people would gripe otherwise.

One other thing that bugs me sometimes is our language’s lack of a personal pronoun that can refer to either sex or both. When phrases like “he or she” and “his or her” are placed too often in one sentence, or even in one paragraph, the language can become muddled or extraneous. I try to include both sexes in my site’s articles. But, for simplicity and clarity, I usually just throw in the occasional “he or she” in the midst of a lot of male pronouns.

Over time I have learned to understand it (reluctantly), and sometimes I will joke around in chat using it. But it does have one very useful attribute: because it mixes caps and lower case oddly (like, “suXXorz”) and uses numbers instead of certain letters (like, “i pwn3d j00!”), I can make up a simple word that is easy to remember, “leet-ify” it, and it becomes a valid password on most security systems.

C

I saw a great anti-’txt spk’ banner on a blog once exhorting folks to “SAVE THE VOWELS!”

When I see “leet speek” I tend to assume the typer is a young teenager—not just in age but also maturity—and I’m rarely wrong about that. I only once met someone who tended toward “txt tlk” online who was fairly mature, and he wasn’t extreme about it and never said things like ‘n00b;’ he just had particular difficulty with spelling despite being a bright kid in other areas.

About your main point: I can understand in an MMORPG setting, where one is typing quickly and where the chat window editing features are often woefully minimalistic, that typing in perfect English is going to be rather difficult. However, there is a difference between a few typos (which everyone makes) and writing so badly that even an educated person with a good grasp of English cannot understand you. I will never forget my first introduction to this… on a MUSH, someone asked an admin over a chat channel, quote, “Commander hv u gt a minete?”

I sat there scratching my head thinking, “What the heck is a ‘minete?’” (in my head I pronounced the word “mine-eat”). The admin said, “Sure be right there,” and then went off to help the other person. After a little more thinking I realized the question was, “Commander, have you got a minute?”… even though it looks nothing like that.

I find that I get less annoyed at this sort of thing if it is accidental typos, or just ignorance, then when it is done on purpose… such as the “leet speak” crowd who purposely substitute numbers for letters and speak in a sort of code to show how “cool” they are. For example, when they flame people on a forum saying, “u r a n00b”… That’s on purpose, and I always find it annoying.

Anyways, good post…

C