@42317: How eloquent! This is exactly my point. There is nothing wrong with using text-speak or slang when it is appropriate, as long as one knows how to spell/use grammar/choose words correctly etc. I kind of equate it with the table manners thing. Namely, when I was young, my mum (that’s what we call a mother in NZ) would say “sit up straight, hold your knife and fork correctly, don’t put your elbows on the table” (and so on). I would whine “aw but nobody’s here to see, why bother using good manners?”. She’d say “if you don’t practise table manners now, you won’t know how to use them when you eat out at a fancy restaurant.” Which is true of language. If you’re not taught to use the language correctly, because “It’s ok to use text language” and there’s no real need to use formal English, the danger is that you might not be able to speak/write properly when it is required of you. And that is my rant of the day. Thanks for listening.

Written language is never natural language, it always comes in a stylised form, chosen for convenient reasons, mostly as an enhanced method of information transfer. And that is what’s important about it.
Which is to say, as long as everybody commands the standard form I could not care less in what kind of slang or jargon one converses with his/her friends.

English has pathetic pronunciation rules. The spelling rules are just as bad.

Why bother worry about texting and ignore these two horrid topics.

CU L8R M8 might as well be proper English as far as I am concerned.