Personally, I find it very hard to type in "ChatSpeak" in the first place. I end up typing something that looks like someone tripped over with a load of Scrabble letters.

If it is a honest mistake, then I don't mind that. It's the people who intentionally type in "ChatSpeak" that annoy me, partly because I have no idea what they're trying to say. On that note, it also annoys me when these people complain about "not being listened to" and such when no one can actually understand what they are attempting to say in the first place.

I also don't mind the occasional "LOL", "BRB" and "OMG" as I am familar with these by using MSN with my friends. But some people take it too far, such as, "LOL!!!111!1!!!eleven" which is a waste of characters if you ask me.

(Also, good luck Cyborgxxi and hope you did well -- even though you've already done your tests now.)

I'm glad to be able to see there are people here who have been having the same amount of trouble in regards to the new generation of grammar trolls. When you think about it, instant messaging via the web, or via the mobile phone, somewhat has helped degrade english speaking in various forms.

Personally, I think everyone should just go read Eric S. Raymond's Smart Questions FAQ, then sit down and read a few well-written books of some sort.

Unrelatedly, studyig grammar and stuff in school didn't really do anything for me. After being a book addict since the tender age of three, correct spulling and grammar vocaublary and come naturally. I could pick any misformed English phrase and intuitively tell you how it needed to be changed, but I couldn't tell you exactly why.

Something else to keep in mind, too, is that Astahost makes money from ad revenue largely driven by search engine hits. Poor spelling means less search hits, means less revenue, yields less service. If you appreciate Astahost, keep this in mind when posting.

That's another reason why the topic titles of almost all posts are edited here to reflect the content better. This helps our posts get very good ranking on the search engines. Besides sometimes it gets quite necessary to rename topic titles, as some members make posts with really odd and short titles which leave one totally in the dark as to the real content of the post. That is entirely undesirable on out forums .. we try to keep the garbage out as much as possible and only the useful stuff in - to try and help make your life a breeze when it comes to locating documents .

I really dont mind when people mis spell words or make little errors, and simple chat speak is okay (like LOL, w8, u, 4), but I think 1337 makes you look like an idiot. It just takes too much time to read, and its almost always garbage. You dont often see much leetspeek anymore, and i think that is a good thing. One Thing I Find Really Annoying Is Those People Who Type Like This, Where Every Word Is A Capital Letter! This is really annoying (both for the reader and your pinkies), and there is absolutely no reason for it. All caps is better than this, because at least it gives the eye an idea of what to expect.

On the flipside, I HATE people who are always correcting little mistakes. For instance, in this post I havent been using apostrophes. This is because for some reason FireFox has chosen to open the page search box when I hit them (an intermittent bug). Would I want people to point it out, NO! Forums are about conversation and building a community (and for Astra showing ads), not a seminar on correct grammar and spelling.

Thanks if you read this REALLY long post, I finally decided to voice my opinions on this topic.

Oh boy, don't get me started on 1337 speak. It's highly annoying and just imagine when it comes time for the person to ask a serious question, no one is gonna take him seriously. Some chat speak is ok with me (lol for example) but when ppl talk lyke dis it getz on mi nerves. Typin lyke a 6 yr old is gonna bring teh sayme problem wen it cums to askin serious questionz, u will l00k lyke an idiot.

I may seem like a big grammar and spelling freak, but there's people worst then me. I'm talking about the people Pharoah talked about. The people who will pick out every little mistake in what you have to say for example, you'll put down something like youre or your instead of you're oh well, pointing it out isn't proving anything, just that the person made a small grammar mistake.

One time I was on a site (can't remember which) where some wierd guy sent a complaint letter to the webmaster, entirely in 1337 speak!! I thought it had died out, but apparently not. My guess is that it was actually a VERY tiny subculture of people, which has gotten a little more attention than it deserves because of the way that they type. I read that it was designed to look like binary files to "un-initiated" people! What are they hiding? Multiple forum posts of "Jooz noobz"? Cracks of doom 1.0? The idea is just stupid.

And with regaurd to the people who point it out, maybe they think it makes their penis larger??
(feel free to edit that if it isn't allowed moddies)

That is exactly how I am. I find it fairly hard to do the grammar stucff in school, and the mistakes in the book I don't get, but I notice everything in the real world that counts. It seems like even my (very good) English teachers may not be using some of the rules (like whom all the time, or he when it should be him), but I can get by and my writing can look intelligent if I want it to.

As I've said before, spelling and grammar is important, plus I find it takes longer for me to type something in 1337 or any other kind of webspeak. Not only that, but I find it takes longer to read it too. And camel caps take even longer because the human eye is taught to read straight and not up and down, such as when looking at camel caps.

The reason for all of this?

Human nature: laziness.