Venting about juvenile internet language

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Hit the nail right on the head, no offense meant. Really though, much of the internet-speak and text-speak is about efficiency - less characters means less time to type, more information in a smaller space, etc. Very useful when you're typing something with a phone, also useful when you have a limited number of characters per message. If anything, this would be a sign of intelligence - adapting writing style to the situation. Just because someone does not conform to your culture, the way you use language, does not make them an idiot.

I guarantee there is stuff you say every day that someone much older than you would consider butchery, whether such people are currently alive or not. In a couple decades I could easily be cursing the younger generation as you are.

I don't use internet language much myself, but I have nothing against it.

I believe this has just as much to do with personal preference as it does with the generation gap. It's fair to say that more people belonging to generations before my own practice proper grammar and spelling, having grown up in a time where improper usage of language was frowned upon. This has always been the case, no? But the decline in vocabulary, sentence structure and other such things can be just as frustrating for young people like myself. At least adults are somewhat expected to speak maturely (or perhaps that's simply wishful thinking on my part). People my age (I'm twenty-one) are seen as presumptuous and therefore irritating when we don't use "text-talk". On many occasions, people have actually thought that I was deliberately trying to insult/belittle them by speaking, writing or typing formally. When did it become a bad thing to speak formally? It's gotten to the point that I'll toss slang and emoticons into posts in order to avoid upsetting or boring people. Just as there are twenty-somethings who reject the current grammar rebellion, there are forty-somethings (my mother included) who embrace the change.

Maybe I have no right to complain in the In-Depth Adult Life Discussion Forum about being a young thinker who doesn't want to speak/act young, but your topic piqued my interest. I've been annoyed with many actions associated with teens since, well, since I was a teenager.