Wat U Sai?

I have come to the realization that I am old. I have finally reached the age where some music is just too loud. And some kids are indeed disrespectful and need some home training. But even with all of that, nothing seems to get under my skin more than the fact that the youth of today have lost all capabilities of conveying a simple sentence into something that I can understand.¹

It all began a few years ago when texting became the new craze. I saw words like ‘you are’ abbreviated into ‘ur’ and ‘for’ became ‘4′ and I could live with that. Five to ten years ago most phones didn’t come with a QWERTY keyboard and it was indeed quite annoying to hit #2 three times in order to spell out a C.

But as times have changed, and technology has adapted and improved, the IQ of the texting generation has dropped by about 75 points.  And the ridiculous spelling craze is no longer limited to texting. I cannot seem to escape it! Everywhere I turn someone is forcing me to read ‘what’ as ‘wat’. Is adding the ‘H’ to the word THAT complicated? Is the extra 0.00001 second it would take really so much that it would throw off their entire schedule?

Now I know that we all use abbreviations in our day to day lives… and if you don’t, I applaud you. When I think about abbreviations, I am pretty much ok with them. Simplifying a sentence is something I am willing to tolerate. If you want to thank me and opt to use ‘tyvm’ I won’t get mad. I will admit to tossing around an ‘ikr’² and ‘iawtc’³ while commenting on Oh No They Didn’t. But even on those forums, there are grown ass woman and men who use ‘bb’ to say baby. I haven’t quite wrapped my brain around how the sounds “Be Be” can be pronounced to sound like ‘baby’, but that’s just me. Maybe they are saying “Beh Beh” which is just…. annoying. But remember, I am old now so little things are bound to annoy me. Now where was I?

I play World of Warcraft and so of course I use the typical LOL and BRB or AFK. Sometimes when having to explain things I will use ‘ppl’ as a substitute for ‘people’.  I will flat out put a kid on ignore on when I can not understand what the hell they are saying.  “Erbody go 2 da farm n kil dem hords tryna take da flag” was something tossed out the other day while playing.  I had to screen cap it because I was really shaking my head wondering if his mother knew that her child, who I am going to assume was still in elementary school based on the sentence, was messing around on her computer playing a game designed for people over the age of 13.⁴

I think the part of it that really drives me bonkers is seeing someone pretty much misspell every word in a sentence and I chalk it up to them texting only to realize that that wasn’t the case … they were actually sitting at a real keyboard and still couldn’t manage to spell ‘dat’ as ‘that’.  Is it meant to be something cute? Are misspelling words on purpose  the new rage? Do people really hire someone who doesn’t know that ‘my’ is not ‘ma’⁵ or ‘mah’. And if a person can spell ‘ma’ or ‘mah’, why not just type it correctly to begin with?? Do I now have to make potential employees take a spelling test to make sure our paperwork will get filled out in a professional manner?

So for those who may be confused about some how to form basic sentences, here is a quick little review course:

• Iz is not Is. The ’s’ and ‘z’ keys are not that far apart so if you can hit one, you can hit the other.
• Dem is not Them. I don’t even understand the point in typing out the word like that unless it’s how you say it when you speak, and if that’s the case, stop it.
• Sum is not some. A SUM is the total of something. The sum of 2+2 is 4. SOME is usually an unspecified amount.
• Da or Tha is not The. If you can manage to spell ‘tha’, then you are close… find the ‘e’ key which isn’t far off from ‘a’ and you are good to go.
• Wit is not With. One of the definitions of wit is “speech or writing showing such perception and expression” and purposelessly misspelling ‘with’ isn’t at all witty. The letter ‘h’ is hop away from ‘t’ so use it so make the word you actually are trying to express.
• Wat or Wut is not What. I am realizing there is a common problem forming here with the missing ‘h’. I don’t get it because the ‘h’ is dead smack in the middle of the keyboard! Find it and use it.
• Your can NEVER be substituted as UR. I can get trying to use it for ‘you are’… I can semi tolerate that… but never ever for ‘your’. And if that’s something I need to explain, then please do not pass go, go directly to grade 1 and speak to your teacher.
• N is not And. There are very few situations where ‘n’ can be used as a substitute for and. Telling me to invite ‘Sarah n Jane’ is not one of them.
• Git is not Get. If you can manage to type out a word using all the letters, why not just spell it the right way?
• What is the point of removing the last letter from words? If you can type ‘hav’ then just add the damn ‘e’. Another one is ‘gon’.  Toss on the ‘e’ and the word is complete! It’s really not that hard to do. I could go on and on but you get the point.

I am sure I have pissed off a lot of people so let me quickly clarify that I am not an English teacher, nor do I propose to know all things about the English language, but I can speak about common sense. I  find text typing nothing more than something annoying and so very unamusing. Most of us tolerate it and choose to not say anything but I’ve had enough of it. If you want to use it in the privacy of your home or to text back and forth to a friend who is willing to have their IQ lowered by having to read it, that’s between you and them. I’m going to pass on it.⁶

We as a civilization are supposed to be getting smarter and wiser… not backtracking into the land of idiocy. So for all you kids and maybe even grown ups who think it’s cool to type like a jackass, all I can really say is L2Spell.⁷

1. sorry little sister [↩]
2. i know right? [↩]
3. i agree with this comment [↩]
4. and oh how I wish the age limit was higher but that’s for a different day [↩]
5. because ma is your mom/mother [↩]
6. and no, that doesn’t make me conceited or sadiddy or anything else you may want to call me… I just enjoy the English as it’s meant to be delivered. [↩]
7. that would be doodspeak for ‘Learn to Spell’ which is something slightly less irritating than text typing… plus I just couldn’t resist. [↩]

Tagged as: can't speak, guides to typing, kids, old, second hand embarassment, texting, the soapbox, typos, world of warcraft