Txt-Tlk Torture

Posted on Monday 2nd of January 2006 02:18:54 PM by Maximinus

So, you hear these stories of so-called "txt-spk" or "txt-tlk" (otherwise known as "Oops! I forgot half the letters!" or "I Can't Spell for Peanuts") creeping into use in essays and exams. If I were a teacher or exam marker, and I came across such atrocities, I would be deducting marks and probably leaving comments to the effect of "There was no limit to the number of characters allowed" and "Have you forgotten how to write full sentences?" - in fact, no, if I were a teacher seeing that in an essay, I would surely be an "English" teacher - so think I'd see it as a sign that I had failed as a teacher, and would be forced to move on to something better.

Anyway, this "txt-tlk" is getting out of control. People are using it in online conversations, despite having full QWERTY (or other layout) keyboards at their disposal. Surely it should be taking more effort to think up these stupid little abbreviations than it would take to just type the whole word? And being a slow typist is no excuse - you'll never improve the rate at which you can type full words if you never type full words.

Another alarming trend is for adults to use txt-tlk (see, because I know how to use proper English, I keep having to go back and take the vowels out of that abomination, because I somewhat automatically add them in). I'm ok with some shortening of words to make an entire message it within the 160-character confines of a single SMS, but when they're doing it needlessly, it just pisses me off. And when adults are using it in online conversations, it's even more annoying - once again, they have a full keyboard at their disposal, and this time, they've been brought up using full words - and they're mangling the English language in hideous ways despite all that - and to achieve what?