I feel the same way about having it in the forums as I do in the chat. If you cannot speak in a manner that people can understand, why bother speaking at all. Same thing should go for writing :)
I think only a few "txt tlk" terms are acceptable. Among them are "lol," "lmao," similar laughing abbreviations that show amusement, and "brb" which was around before text messaging since there are times when a situation in the real world can't wait, but it would be rude to just run off when chatting with people.
"txt tlk" has actually become known by some people as it's own language. Since it is not English it is against the rules of the site, assuming anyone who enforces the rules do not consider it to be English. Personally I don't because it does not follow the rules of the English language.
None of it is really a big deal to me. My rule is simple. If someone uses that butchery of our dictionary I completely ignore them. I do not respond to their messages and I act as if they hadn't said a word in the forums or chat, they simply do not exist.
Text typing is a sort of shorthand, Fine when texting by telephone to another telephone. But it has no place on a site such as this.
Plain English, please!
However, "texting" is much older than the youngsters may think!
During wartime when men far from home wrote to their wives and sweethearts, they would put words on the back of the letters, and just about everybody could understand them. For instance SWALK.
(Sealed with a loving kiss) and the answer sent back would read BOLTOP (Better on lips than on paper).
But again, most of the modern texting cannot be understood by people of my age (78). I have a mobile phone and I don't know how to text!
I must add to my post that many youngsters may not have a full keyboard computer, and they send in posts from a cell phone. All one can say about that is, keep the posts very short, and some other youngster may translate the post.
I don't consider what has been done in the past to be what texting is today. In the past they were abbreviations and that is common. The military does it all the time due to the long names some things have. Texting today is simply a butchery of English, in my opinion. Unless it is an emergency a person shouldn't bother texting unless they're going to take the time to spell things out fully and at least most of the time correctly.
But that's just me. I'm not exactly a "youngster" anymore, but I'm still young and I hate text talk.
can't stand it personally. i've never been one for text speak [outside of lol] i'd like to think people wouldn't use it, especially on a site where most people want/need help with things. text speak is fine in the live chat, but when you're asking a question, it's like writing in binary, sure some people know it, but not everyone.
I believe that it is unnescesary to use "txt tlk" in any way in the forums, it is very confusing to people who dont know it. I know it, I'm sure many people on this site know it, but its not appealing to those who do not understand in.
