This is a bit difficult to explain, but I am a person who feels irritated by short forms such as "u" for "you", "r" for "are", "wanna" for "want to", and so on.
Maybe this is because I am 50 years old. Why should age matter? Well, the habit of using those short forms has become popular within the last 10 or 15 years, and perhaps I am at the age in which I cling to old ways!
When someone sends me a follower request with a lot of "u" and "i" (not capitalized), I think two things: (1) This person is influenced by popular Internet usage, which is dominated by young people, and perhaps this person does not know the situations in which native speakers feel such usage is appropriate. (2) This person doesn't know that such usage in an introduction message feels kind of disrespectful.
Why does it feel disrespectful? Well, that is the question we can work on in this discussion!
It's not us who took out:
The melody out of music,
The pride out of appearance,
The courtesy out of driving,
The romance out of love,
The commitment out of marriage,
The responsibility out of parenthood,
The togetherness out of the family,
The learning out of education,
The service out of patriotism,
The Golden Rule from rulers,
The nativity scene out of cities,
The civility out of behavior,
The refinement out of language,
The dedication out of employment,
The prudence out of spending,
The ambition out of achievement or
God out of government and school.
And we certainly are NOT the ones who eliminated patience and tolerance from personal relationships and interactions with others!!
However it is us who has to live with all this and the simple word that on my mind explains the problem is IRRESPONCIBILITY.
What do you expect? Seems like 90% of the American population doesn't know the difference between your and you're. How do you expect non-native speakers to learn "proper" English from them?
I do get annoyed by the u r and so forth, but I think that if you're English is really that good, then it's okay, you can use it. Problem is most of the time their English is not so great and when they add these short forms, it makes it absolutely cryptic to understand, as someone stated before.
Yes. But the tricky part is that they are not necessarily "mistakes". It's a question of usage, and the usage is widespread in the youth culture, both native and nonnative.
I have corrected entries in which the nonnative writer used the short forms, and the writer was confused because these forms are also used by native speakers.
So I just wanted to make the point in this discussion that there is a meaning attached to usage (as Peachey explained very well) -- all to raise a little awareness.
When the non English native speakers made the mistakes at first time, you guys are supposed to correct them and should not blame for them. However if they made such mistakes again, then they should be blamed.
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Point taken! But I don't think it's much harder to learn y-o-u than to learn u. <img title="Wink" src="http://www.italki.com/Scripts/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-wink.gif" alt="Wink" border="0" />
Who knows? Maybe in the future, English will evolve and the short forms will become the new standard, and everyone will have forgotten the current standard.
