Make it stop, make it stop

Ow. My head hurts.

This morning I decided to randomly surf the blogs at blogspot. I've found quite a few in the past that I love. CreativeWife, Clublife, The Common Bonds of Disinterest and Ennui. And then there are some that make my brain feel like it's been pushed through a meat-grinder and is about to be turned into chicken mcnuggets.

(Interesting thought there. A friend of mine wrote a play about a farmer who would kidnap people and treat them like his cows - then eat them. The farmer kept saying that people were just like a good cow steak. However, people are more akin to pigs than cows and our flesh would come out more like pork than beef. White meat, not red. It was a good play - but still...we really are the other-other white meat not the other red meat. However, my friend is a vegetarian...so I don't suppose it mattered. He's a great writer.)

The main thing that bothers me is chatspeak. I've read many an article saying how it's actually natural for a language to evolve in this way. English is a living language and very adaptable. Obviously spellings change. We don't get up in arms when someone spells "colour" "color" or "shoppe" "shop" We evolved...we dropped erroneous letters. And I do think it's neat that 133t speak (elite speak or hacker speak) is so diverse and has so readily permeated language. And l33t is all about finding new ways to get the same point across. Long ago there was an article on Slashdot about how one could get just the first and last letters of a word right, put gobble-de-gook in the middle and English being the way it was it could still be understood. I find deciphering l33t speak a challenge, like a puzzle. It can be fun.

But a paragraph of "chat speak" (different from elite speak) is less amusing ie.

Hi ppl...*** here..newly create blog sho wil b damn plain de lo..wil try to edit it..wif other ppl de help lah..i not dat smart..can do dis do dat without help..Byez now...

I don't mean to be mean...but ow. What the hell is that? When did baby talk become cool? Wif? Does de=to? Now I can understand that English may not be this particular bloggers first language. Perhaps there are smatterings of other languages interspersed in this...er...paragraph. But still. Isn't the point to be semi-comprehesible.

And they are. I know what they are saying. Somewhat. As an actress, and a primarily Shakespearean one, my first choice is to try and explicate this.

Here goes:

Hi everyone....I am ***...This is a newly created blog so it will be damn plain (unintelligible)...I will try to edit it...Other people may help (???)...I'm not that smart, I can do this and that without help though....bye now.

Um...even that seems a bit abrupt and unintelligible. And there is no chat speak.

Here's the thing. I basically understood that paragraph. I knew what they wanted to communicate. I filled in the gaps all by myself. And it's sorta cool. But there is a time when chat speak ends and real MLA must prevail. Unfortunately, people really don't get that. I can be forgiving of it on a blog if it stops in say...and a college english course. I was recently enrolled in an English 122 course online. Our assignments were posted on discussion boards where we read and commented on one anothers work. Four students (two high school students and two adults) posted their essays in chat speak.

wat I did on summer vac. i went to da beach. it was a long trip...but was good. my friend cam wif us and we all had good time. i ask why my friend came and she said cuz u asked me too. i forgot that so we waz rolf all the way home.

Not a direct quote...but pretty damn close. I was shocked at first. Then surprised when no one else mentioned "Er-uh-hey. How about writing full words." Then I was slowly disgusted as my well-researched and finely proof-readed essays were given the same points as my unpunctuated classmates. I worked hard on my essays. I tried to make them good. And they get A's for writing DRIVEL?

It's funny how that one little instance made me hate ALL chat speak. During the class I stopped being forgiving of blogs who used chatspeak. I was suddenly less tolerant of people who spattered posts with "u" and "cuz". Just because I knew that they weren't just saving time while they chat. They do it all the time. I imagined lawyers writing Wills in chat speak. Doctors writing my prescription filled with lol and lmao. It disgusted me.

I dropped the class.

But my indignation sometimes comes to a broil again. Usually when I find posts like ***'s. Because I know some day *** will be writing an email to his or her's business associate and it will come out.

Yo. Wuz up?

Can we meet in teh Bellagio Conf. Room today? I gots things 2 talk 2 u bot.

thx.

And that makes my head hurt.