Are You Four Years Old?

Call me a snob, but I am an educated woman and I know how to speak and write; and yes, I will correct your grammar. It may be silently, but I promise you that I am doing it. 

I look at articles (on- and off-line), text messages, and Facebook posts and I just cringe. Today's society has become so lazy and one way to prove it is by reading anything written by the average person. You will find common words misspelled, punctuation left out, incorrect words used, and/or not even full words and numbers being used as letters and words (thank you text language. NOT!). It is very upsetting to people who actually use the education and knowledge they have received. 

The thing that bothers me the most is status updates and emails sent from phones and tablets with auto-correct and word prediction. More often than not there are "predicted" words used instead of the intended words. More often than not there are many misspelled words because the user has turned off the auto-correct or has typed so many wrong letters that the device doesn't even recognize the intended word to correct to. 

Text messaging is the worse thing to ever be invented right after the language that has been created with it. Text language is the worse. Numbers are not letters and certainly not words. And leaving out letters to shorten words? What is that about? Like "thks" (or "thx"), "u," "r," "nvr," and "tht." By leaving out letters, you just look like a moron who doesn't know how to spell. Some acronyms make sense and are easy to understand, but made up acronyms are awful and should not be used at all. When did "dumbing down" the spelling of words become a thing? Luv? Wuz? Kan? Please take the effort to spell out words all the way. 

Punctuation is a life saver, especially periods. What is the point of all those years of grammar lessons in elementary school if you aren't going to use them? Sentences with periods at the end of them are much easier to read than sentences without periods. Commas are great too. I'm sure you have seen this post before: "'Let's eat, Grandma' vs 'Let's eat Grandma.'" Use punctuation and save a life, probably your own. 

One last thing, leaving whole words out does not save time. It takes anyone who is reading twice as long to figure out what the heck you are trying to say! Put in nouns. Put in adjectives. Put in verbs. But most importantly, PUT IN NOUNS! Especially when you are talking about yourself and you leave out "I" but not "am." It's stupid!

There is a reason why we are sent to school and taught things when we are growing up. We are taught to be the best people we can be. Educated people speak well. Educated people write well. Educated people use their education to sound like they have an education! Unless you are four years old, please use the grammar you have been taught.