What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

Over my (far too) many years of gaming, I've seen a lot of trends, but this one just absolutely boils my brain: when did grammar become utterly, completely optional?

It slips in in trickles. Instead of "You," people start putting "U." That was logical. "I LOVE U" is seen on candy hearts everywhere every February 14th, so it's tnot too much of a stretch. Then you've got clipped words: ppl, thx, l8r, ty, yw...I don't even remember how long it took me to figure out what "ty" and "yw" mean. What's really so hard about "thank you!" or "You're welcome"?

Maybe to get my point across, I should say "your welcome." After all, most people I find online can't even distinguish between possessive form and contractions. Important tip: "You're ruining your grammar" is correct, as is "You're making your fourth grade English teacher roll in her grave."

What actually brought this on is a string of posts I've seen by people on a forum I frequent, [a href="http://www.evolutionm.net" TARGET="_blank"]EvolutionM[/A]. It's for Mitsubishi Lancer owners, but the problem becomes crap-ass posts like this:

Hey, anybody wanna buy some oz rims wit yokohama tires. deres bout 3300 mi on them. im lettin dem go for 75 ea rim and 30 for ea tire. leave a message or email me at [deleted] if interested

What the hell is THAT? "deres?" "dem?" And then there's this:

juz needed some little eyecandy...enuff of admiring evos...for e moment...haha..so go on...show yr support for yr favourite supercar(plz post supercars...

juz enuff? yr? Your? Or is it you're? Can you answer me that?

Pardon me, Mr. Twain, but I think your tongue-in-cheek suggestion for English Spelling Reform has been taken too far.

Aftr al, r kidz cant even spel crctly in clas no more. Don bliev me?

Ask these kids in high school now that write term papers with "4" "U" and "ppl" in them.

What are they going to do when they get to the real world? R thy gonna c whuzzup or wil dey b xpozd 4 d idiots they r becoming?

Just a thought. My two cents, so to speak. The more we allow this kind of crap to go on the more we dumb ourselves down as a generation. Let's get the hell with it, kids. It's cute and funny when it's with friends on AOL Instant Messenger, but when Silas Marner comes a'callin', let your ppl go.