I am a grammar nazi. Really. Everyone has a pet-peeve, right? Something that just irritates them beyond belief? Well, for me, that happens to be poor grammar and an incorrect usage of homophones. Also, since text messaging and instant messaging have become normal conversational tools, it seems that this texting/messaging language has made its way into our daily lives, plaguing our emails and correspondence. I understand the stray comma or the forgotten semicolon here and there, but to write and entire paragraph that is void of punctuation and capitalization? Not only unacceptable — purely indecipherable! If you don’t capitalize, I don’t know where your sentence begins. If you don’t punctuate, you force me to try and read your three paragraph email as one incredibly long run-on sentence. It’s impossible!
Also, note to those that write in such an indecipherable manner, CAPITALIZATION is used in a few capacities: primarily when beginning a sentence or when capitalizing a proper noun. You can’t use compensatory capitalization! For example:
hey ma wanted to see if you wanted To get coffee
Capitalizing “to” in this sentence doesn’t make up for the fact that you suck at writing. It doesn’t take the place of capitalizing the first letter of the sentence, nor does it make up for the fact that you’ve left out punctuation in its entirety. Moreover, it NEVER makes up for the fact that you’ve referred to me as “ma,” “babe,” or any other bizarro term that you find appropriate for me. FYI — I’m not your mom, so calling me “ma,” “mama,” or “mami” is just incestuously weird.
Now, moving on to homophones… oh Lord, with the homophones.
To, Two, Too
There, They’re, Their
Yes, when you say them, they sound the same. That is the joy of a homophone. They are not, however, interchangeable in any way. For example, the following sentences do not work and never will:
I’m going to.
It’s over their.
I think it’s there’s.
If any of those looked remotely correct to you, I suggest you read this book and then re-visit this post and this situation. In the first case {I’m going to}, it really looks like an incomplete sentence (and I’m not just being a bitchy grammar queen); it appears as though you’re saying “I’m going to…. [some specific location],” but didn’t finish your thought. It does not appear as though you are trying to say that you are going, also. In that case, you would say “I’m going, too.” As a side note, bye and by are two different words, as are here and hear. Learn how they work before you use them.
Lastly (last rant here [not “hear”], kiddos): Using text language in normal semi-professional correspondence is a no-no. FYI, it was never a yes-yes. I get that sometimes the 150 characters allotted to a text message aren’t enough to complete your thought, and thusly you have to use some text-y abbreviated language: r for “are” or u for “you”. I can totally understand that in a text message. When typing an email to another human being, there is seriously no reason to ever use “u” instead of “you.” Never. You are not so pressed for time that you can’t hit the other two characters that comprise that word. “4” instead of “for”? Same thing. Lame. To the nth degree.
Using l8r instead of “later”? I think it probably took you longer to find the “8” key than to actually just type out “later” like a normal person. Or using “wuz” instead of “was?” I mean, really? You’re not saving any characters in your text and you look like a total tool. “Wuz”? In what language is that correct?
I’m not a bitch, I promise. I’m just a girl who appreciates correct grammar and spelling. Additionally, I think that running across a gentleman who understands the correct use of punctuation and implementation of grammar is so incredibly attractive… probably because I can decipher his text messages :)
Gotta jet now. Talk to you kids l8r,
The Traveling Scholar 