teenSpeak

I may be showing my age here, but I have to say, I am getting really annoyed at the way teens communicate online. It's not all of them, but some have such an atrocious grasp of the English language, it makes me want to cry.

Case study: I have two cousins, both around age 15, both female, both live in Arizona. Cousin S is on my dad's side of the family, Cousin J is on my mom's side (she's my mother's cousin's granddaughter, but that counts as a cousin in my huge Italian family, hehe). I am friends with both of them on Facebook. See some of their updates:

Cousin S:
...the orange hair is back!!!!
...doesn't want to go to physical therapy tomorrow!!!!
...feels stupid

Teenager-ish, but reasonable. Now see...

Cousin J:
...bord dont want to go to school:(
...dance tonight then gym ugh not looking forward to it haah so tired from schoolhow many days until the next break
...goingt to apple bees with the fam. haha

For some reason, half or more of her updates include "haha" even when it's not something funny (like "goin 2 the mall haha"). Her spelling is awful, and her friends' responses are even worse (all caps, complete netspeak, etc.). I feel like I need to decode her messages sometimes. All of her pics are completely inappropriate for a girl her age (she and her friends in bikinis trying to look sexy) and she's constantly begging for people to comment on her photos.

Cousin S, if she posts pictures of herself and her friends in bathing suits, always is in a funny or dorky pose, just trying to be funny. She uses Facebook to keep in contact with out-of-state family, and her friends seem to leave very respectful comments.

Now I know these kids are growing up texting, which I didn't start until after college. By neccesity, abbreviations are used in texting, and it has spilled over into all of their online communication. I admit to using lol, omg, zomg, brb, and wtf quite a bit, but only because they're fun, and MUCH shorter than the original phrase. I have never typed wuteva, 2 instead of to/too, 4 instead of for, u instead of you, ur instead of you are, etc. I'd rather shoot myself.

If I make a typo on Twitter, I erase the tweet and re-do it. I am a completely anal spelling/grammar Nazi. Still, I feel like I'm from another world sometimes when my 21-year-old sister, only six years younger than me, types emails and texts in a seemingly different language.

Some teen tweets that make me laugh:

~~~~~
BISH, I LOVE YOU SHUT UP. LMFAO

its been obvious dat wuteva i like, u and tnice will say da opposite.

ha! gyrl wuteva workz!

yeah! for realz! i wanna see dat!
~~~~~

Yeah. 'Nuff sed. =P