Lately I've noticed an influx of people who seem to be rather fond of chat slang; eg. ur, m8, l8, kewl, ...

I would like to point out that it *is* indeed frowned upon, this does not show your superior intellect nor does it testify of your maturity. While I understand that it is easier to type this way in chat, it is not ok to do the same in posts here. Mainly because it does not make your post very readable, it often leads to confusion, and in general a lot of people just ignore the post.

You will increase your chances on a speedy, good reply if you take the time to formulate your sentences, use punctuation and for the love of all that is considered holy - just to cover all bases - type in plain English. I don't think that we all are English, in fact I am Belgian, English is my second language, but as long as you try - it is fine by me. Just make the effort of formulating your sentences instead of slapping them on the screen in an incoherent way.

And while I am on this topic, I would like to stress the importance of not overusing the "Return" key. Don't hit your enter-key two or three times after each sentence, it really is redundant. Just one white-line will do to mark the end of a paragrah and the beginning of a new one. You won't cheat the credits script.

I don't think it should be that hard to write correct sentences. English is my second language too, and I don't find it difficult to write it. After all, what you're writing is essentially what you're saying, right? If you can read aloud what you have written, and it makes sense to you, it'll make sense to most people.
However, there are some mistakes that cannot be detected by just reading your writing aloud. You may have used a homonym instead of the word you really mean (like "they're" instead of "their" or "would of" instead of "would've/would have"). These mistakes can't be fixed without a human (that is, a machine can't fix it). However, they probably won't affect our reading speed unless you make them too many times. Another mistake is spelling errors. You can easily fix this by using a spell checker. Google Toolbar (for Firefox and Internet Explorer) includes a handy spell checker.

As for the punctuation and the "Return" key. Punctuation is really important. Whenever you sense a pause in your sentences, you should put a comma there. Commas make it much easier for the reader to understand what you mean. You should also capitalize the first letter in a sentence so that it is easier to find when a sentence begins and when it ends. You should use the "Return" key when you're changing the subject. It could be used to get the reader's attention. However, if you use too much of it, none of your paragraphs will get enough attention.

Honestly, I have observed that there aren't as many people using such Internet slang - eg. ur, m8, l8, kewl, etc. I am happy with that because people can communicate more efficiently and in a better way! I mean, still, there are those MSN users who use lol omg 0wnage and stuff like that but...

Well, I don't have anything to say about that. I just ... have to say that there are two kinds of communicators:

Formal and Informal

An example of formal would be:
-Hello, my name is Jim Jones. What's yours? Oh, that's funny.

An example of informal would be:
-sup im jim jones n wads urs??? lol omfg dats funny

I think there's people in between and those in the extreme regions but... still, I hope you know what I'm talking about

But anyway, to stay on topic - spelling and grammar is very important when you're trying to communicate because misuse of those esssential parts of a language can lead to accidents! People taking things the wrong way, misunderstands, incomprehension, etc.

There's nothing wrong against it but I think it should be kept polished because it's just good

While I have no objection to use OMG, LOL etc. it's the "sup im jim jones n wud u blieve dis if i said dat u sux0rs" It takes people ages to decypher it and doesn't really relay anything that is worth the time to decypher. Of course I am exaggerating the use of chat slang, but my point is reasonably simple.

Astahost is aiming to be a tech-savvy forum where hosting as giving to those posting decent posts, but then you have the applications of those that can't even be bothered to write their sentences out fully.

If people who don't speak English as a first language can make perfect sense on this forum, then so can those of us who grew up learning to read and write this language.

I hate wading through posts filled with chatspeak, l33t and other indecipherable garbage. I really do. I don't expect *perfect* grammar or spelling, but I would rather see someone misspell or mess up an attempt to write correctly, than not even bother and instead post meaningless "hey dis is sux0rz" or whatever.

That's basically how I feel Sarah. It's not that I can't make sense out of chatspeak or 13375p34k (leetspeak), it just takes me ages. And seeing it used in posts just makes me cringe.

I'll share a little story - A friend of mine, who is in her mid-thirties and teaches theatre arts in a middle school, was talking to me not too long ago, she told me about a friend of hers. And now I will quote her exact typing...

"I have a friend that is trying to..."

Who sees the wrong in that very partial sentence? I did in fact cringe when I noticed the grave grammatical error she made. I did not point it out, but checked and saw to my great horror that it seemed to be a common mistake for her.

For the record, the correct version would be "I have a friend, who is trying to...". Basically, if you use "that" when it is pointing to a noun which indicates a person, that person would be an inanimate object, not a person. If it is a person, you should use "who" or "whose" depending on the sentence of course.

While I am far from knowledgable about English Grammar, I do try and can spot some errors. Mistakes like the aforementioned are common and excusable - for non-native speakers, for educated native speakers, it is not excusable. (I am rather pedantic when it comes to spelling and grammar, but it did get me a few "awards" for spelling bees in Belgium)

Anyhow, mistakes like that, I have no issues with, but it's the use of "ur" etc that I feel shows a lack of willingness to invest any energy into posting, so it makes me feel that I should not invest my own time and energy in replying.

(PS. It is though .. not tho... through and not thru and to/too/two not 2)

Personally, I don't have a big problem with using slang or short-hands in oline conversations in general, as long as they are widely known and 'standardized'-like. I don't commonly use them, but still I don't mind others using them.

But yes, I do have a problem with people who make it a consistent style of writing. It can get pretty annoying.

And as for spelling and grammatical mistakes, I can live with them as long as they're not intentional. I mean, I usually re-read whatever I write before I post. Not only it's a good way to correct the mistakes I invariably make, but I also get some new ideas and better ways to formulate what I have to say.

I'm going to keep an eye on this thread, since I have a special interest in this subject. I hope we can come up with some nice, applicable ideas .

Yeah, it's really an interesting topic to keep an eye on. Don't you think so?

But anyway, I think there is a program/sub-program/application that helps with spelling errors in a webpage or the text you type in your web browser (not the URL bar, but anywhere).

I don't know where you can find it or what it even is, but I'm sure I've heard about it... I think. Hehehe... interesting thing to look into, though. But now, I have to study for the three tests for tomorrow.

Wish me luck everybody
Go practice with Mavis Beacon!

Well, I suppose most of us have some sort of Word Processing software (e.g.: Microsoft Word, Quark XPress, Office.Org suite, etc.) that has built-in spelling and grammatical checking. Perhaps it might be a good idea to write whatever we want using these applications and then 'copy'n'paste' it afterwards.

But that's not the only way. For people who don't have this sort of software, or don't want to be bothered with it, I believe Google's Toolbar has a spell-checking module. It's fast and simple and, as far as it seems to me, accurate. It has no grammar-checking, though.

For those interested, here's where you can know more about the Google Toolbar...

Google Toolbar Webpage


Good luck, cyborg. Hope you do just great .

Being a contributor on PHP Builder in the forums ocassionally you will see posts that do have such garbage, but you also see that it is evident that some are not comfortable with the English language. I will also preface this with stating that my job in the United States Navy was to train pilots, all pilots and also those that speack with them speak in English, it is the international language for that industry.

Many who do not speack or possibly have difficulties with the language of English can get their point out, and they do not use UR or any chat or (CB type lingo from the old Compuserve days). In a chat room I can see that because that is real time and the quicker the response the better, but a forum for asking questions to those that might not have the chat manual handy to respond might not really know just what the h e double toothpicks you are talking about.

I am the worst about mispelling or possibly it is that the keys are in the wrong place of my keyboard (if only I could invent the smart keyboard that knows what I mean to press) so I don't mind a misspell or comma splice or even an occasional abbreviation. As an example I was in FASO in the US Navy which is the acronymn for Fleet Avation Specialized Operations but where I was assagned was FASOTRAGRULANT-DETCECIL which of course stands for Fleet Avaition Specialized Operations Traning Group Atlantic Fleet Detachment Cecil Field ( I know it does not exactly work correctly, ask the Navy about that part). So Sometime I can see an acronym but if it had in parenthesis what it stands for it would be nice.