Grammar

I have a question. I have an opinion on this as well, but I'm curious as to what others think. Is proper use of grammar, correct spelling, and appropriate punctuation that important today in the electronic age?

It seems like it all started with chat rooms that were so popular for a few months in the mid-nineties. Now you really don't hear anything about them, but there was a time when they were part of all the hot-button topics. With hurried typing being the only form of communication in those settings, speed mattered more than accuracy. If you took too long answering a question or rebutting an argument than it was assumed that you didn't know the answer or you lost the argument. So, accurate word spelling and usage took a backseat to speed.

Matters only became worse with instant messaging. All of a sudden, you were no longer in a room full of really bored people. You were one on one with someone. That person translated your every pause in ways unknown to you. Shortened statements into a mere few letters became the norm. If you weren't aware of what "lol" and "brb" meant than you were bound to be the laughing stock. You would question the definition of these new words and you would only get more: "lmbo". That was the nicer version of the more popular ones where the "b" was substituted with an "a" or sometimes the downright crude "fa".

Then with the advent of the affordable cell phone with text messaging, things really got stupid. So stupid, in fact, that commercials started making fun of this new language.

So, what do you think? Is improper grammar ever appropriate? Does a paragraph with no letters capitalized make you angry? Do you like the little sideways smiley faces that people type to add an emotion to a sentence. :)

Here are a couple blogs I ran across that are dedicated to the pointing out of improper grammar. The first one is about improper grammar in general and is somewhat entertaining, but the second one is really good. If you only check out one of these sites make it the second one. It's dedicated to the improper use of quotation marks specifically. It's really funny. If you go to it, scroll down a bit and check out their "Greatest Hits" section. As a matter of fact, I think I'll only list the good one. The other one almost gets angry about people misspelling words. Enjoy!

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