Spugsy

heh heh!

The Dean

Mrs The also uses LOL for 'Lots of Love'. I'll tell her the Gran story.

Personal whine: on a traditional phone keypad (where ABC is on the 2 key, DEF on the 3 key, etc), I could never understand 'gr8' for 'great' as it takes exactly the same number of key strokes to write it in full. Not 'cool' enough I suppose.

And what's this 'da' for 'the' that I'm seeing a lot of lately?????

typical

Working for a US firm in a place that seems to prefer American spelling, it has become second nature to me now. I am not amused. As EM says, the date format is even worse though.

I will entirely rewrite text messages if I am a few characters over the limit (not to save money - Etisalat won't seem to deliver longer ones when roaming) rather than change "you" to "u" and so on. I also hate the Americanism "thru", frequently write "etc." as "&c." or accidentally write "usw.", get pissed off when people don't use "yours sincerely" and "yours faithfully" properly, and shiver uncomfortably whenever someone writes "your" for "you're".

On the other hand, I'm very comfortable using lol, wtf, omg, bbq and so on. Then again, while EM was racing his Nova, I was using computer bulletin board systems. I had my first email address (really a FidoNet address) in 1991.

Blue Cat

Don't do text speak full stop, even in texts, would rather send two text than do text speak. I am not perfect though and I am sure I have made many grammatical mistakes, but I do try

Bahtatboy

Up until about a month ago I always, but always, fully punctuated all my texts (and--as you may have noticed--I'm a heavy punctuator). But, since the purpose of communication is to get an idea out of my brain into someone else's, I have relented. It does depend on who I'm texting, but in most cases I use texts informally, so does it really matter if they're not grammatically perfect if--as intended--they serve to get my idea out of my brain into someone else's?

Hello.Kitty

I've always hated badly-written pieces, but gosh, my nerves are currently being seriously challenged by published papers by academics.

I can hardly believe the mistakes - everything under the sun, from incorrect conjugation, grammar, misspelling and endless sentences that have no meaning at all. The worst thing is that 3/4 of these mistakes have obviously slipped through the spell-check and the author hasn't bothered to go any further.

I take a hard line on such things. If you can't put your points across clearly on paper, then you either haven't understood what you're saying or you're too lazy to try... neither of which are good qualities.

Meow

I think that texts between friends are a different issue to communicating by letter, email or even on a forum such as this, particularly when asking about a job.

I find certain abbreviations and particularly a total lack of punctuation very hard to follow. If I was looking for employees that applicant would go straight on the 'hasn't a hope' pile.

commander

There is a big difference between work and typing responses on forums IMO.

It pisses me off when certain posters always highlight gramatical and spelling errors on here.

My work involves loads of emails to clients and official letters/tenders that i ensure are correct.

On here though, i cant be arsed checking the spelling of what i have typed or the correct grammar, or youre you're etc.

SMS wise-i type correctly and not text speak. Also when i see facebook status pages with text speak, i simply do not read it and assume it is typed by some pre pubescent teenager.

seven seas

An SMS is limited to a certain number of characters. You go over that limit and you pay for two messages. That's why people use things like BRB. It saves space and money.

Bahtatboy

As to job applicants, I tolerate minor slips in a CV or covering letter if the applicant isn't British (if they are, both documents have got to be grammatically and idiomatically spot on, at least for office or managerial jobs).

My Filipina admin staff sometime struggle with me: they often create letters to banks for me to sign, and although their English may be grammatically correct, it still isn't necessarily idiomatic, and since the letters are in my name, I insist they put them into British English. Mind you, the people dealing with them in the banks are most likely Indian, so I'm not sure there's much point...

kittycat1

Ok, I know my grammar is shite on here- typos, missed punctuation, often just jibber, however, I am a stickler for grammar in the workplace.

I have in the past, been sent a CV with a cover letter sent in text speak;for example;

i wld luv 2 cum and work 4 u. i <3 ur wrk

Apart from the fact it took me about half an hour to decipher, I was absolutely horrified. I sent an email back thanking for her interest and told her that I was not able to take people who are unable to write a formal letter and thought she should know that it is unacceptable and she should change her format, if she ever expects a response to her CV. I didn't get a response from her.

So yes, I believe it is still very important.

Spugsy

oh yeah, saves a ****ing fortune.

Spugsy

That's just mental though, why would she do that unless she was 7 years old?

kittycat1

I am assuming she was thick as shite!

commander

lol (for spugsy)