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Question

Some people represent the letter "R" as in the word are.
Some people represent the letter "U" as in the word you.
Why do they do that? I don't do that very often because I'm afraid I'll get used to it. If I do that I'll start writing the pronoun "I" as a small "i". Why do people think they are actually cool when they do that?

Answer 1

Years ago I remember the airport announcer abbreviating the word "disembark" to "debark". That seemed lazy to me at the time but your post reminds me that English has sunk to new lows in order to get a point across. Ain't it a shame.

Answer 2

1.) People play with language. Puns, rhymes, poetry, whatever it is, we poke at the way we speak, try to make it interesting, poetic, comical, whatever. We're humans, we're creative. Read 'C D B' by William Steig for some ideas of what you can do using only single letters to speak.

2.) Language changes, standards change. Today's technically accurate language was yesterday's vulgar barbarism, and vice versa. Ain't was unremarkable before the 19th century; we have six copies of Shakespeare's signature, with five different spellings. Standard spelling and prohibitions against using certain words (other than vulgarities) are both relatively recent inventions.

3.) People code-switch, that is, they use different language for different conditions. You use words with friends that you would never use with your grandmother or boss. IMing 'where ru going 2nite' to a friend shouldn't interfere with your ability to speak formally in formal situations.

Answer 3

Hey
Kewl Dude,

Its just kids writting the newest form of Slang.or Ebonics

Don't judge a book by its cover,

the way I look at it , there are much worse things that kids could be doing.

I just wanna tell you that, Dude is also a verbal slang term.

But you are right, if your going to enter the work force you'll need to type appropriately and professionally, I personally finsd it a lot more difficult to type ebonics than to say them, and i find it just as easy to tpe out the entire word than I do to think about the slang way to type it.

But i guess thats just MY education.

What's, they'd , they've, We're- to me these also seem like a short cut, What do you think?

Meg

Answer 4

Don't worry about what everybody else does. Just do it your way. Some people just like to be different from other people. Maybe for attention. I'd rather read the words the way they are; not having to try to figure out a puzzle with it. Suppose you meant it one way and someone else thought you meant it another way? What a mess?

Answer 5

It's only to write faster, I think this is used all around the world, I'm spanish and if I send a message to a cell phone I use to abreviate lots of words, for instance we instead of write 'por que' (why) we use 'xq', at least you write letters and they sound as the word you want to say...

Answer 6

In e-mail, lots of short cuts are used and if it is an informal e-mail to a friend, sure, why not? There is no reason to stand on formality in this type of communication.

But, of course, it should never be used in any business correspondence. Then everything must be written out.

Answer 7

im 1 of those people some pple play world of warcraft and they get r and u from it and its short theyre not lazy and im only a kid so

Answer 8

It's a habit gotten from text messaging on your cell phone.

Answer 9

It's a alot quicker and saves space when sending text messages

Answer 10

We live in the text messaging era. Lazy people.