Why do so many people on this site?

Question

Insist on writing in IM speak?
Refuse to spell check?
Have such a limited grasp on the english language?
Are our schools really that bad?

Answer 1

lazy
stupid
dumb
yes

Answer 2

"Are our schools really that bad?"

Yes!
I'm not a fan of IM text/speech, I feel it disrespects the reader and the language. I realize that it is mostly young people caught up in this craze and that worries me. I worry about their language skills and how it will impact their lives as workers. Grammar, spelling and composition make a great deal of impact when job hunting and not having these skills is a handicap. I would not for an instant consider hiring a person without good communication skills - both written and verbal, even for a job as a sweeper. It was my wish as an employer to hire only people that can advance within the company and that starts at the lowest level jobs. That means having good communications skills! With me - the ability to communicate is my highest prerequisite then dress then education. The company was successful I believe because of the type of people we hired.

Answer 3

I would humbly submit, good sir, that the main and foremost reason as to why so many here on Yahoo Answers has less to do with quality of schooling, and more to do with the relative youth of the individual members.

Put simply, you are dealing with teenagers. They have a habit of not caring about details, and moreso, a habit of rebelling against said details when such are forced upon them. While everyone here is not a teenager to the person (some of us are older, like myself), there are enough of them here to constitute a plurality if not a majority. When in Rome one does as the Romans do.

Besides, you are on the internet. Half the time--every evening, that is--Answers finds itself besieged by repetitive and rather callow "Questions" from people posting from India, Pakistan, Nigeria, and all manner of other places where "english" isn't quite so, where "Hai sir..." is as comprehensible as it gets, and it only gets worse from there. Never mind that people are posting to the U.S. and English-language Questions areas in Arabic, Hindu and/or Vietnamese. Never mind that if anyone from *here* complains about the incomprehensible intrusions, the locals *here* draw the Violations, and not the ones posting relative ishkabibble (this due to Yahoo Answers's clever policy of outsourcing their work to predominantly *non*-english-speaking nations, hence the bias).

The point is simply thus: You are on the *WORLD* Wide Web. Meaning we all have more than a little bit of deviant babble calling itself "english" to deal with every day regardless of our relative education or lack thereof. No one is making you *pay attention* to it. No one is forcing you to read and answer these questions.

If it annoys you so, find something more cultured to do with your time. Stop hanging around dumb kids and the dumb adults who are trying to lead them into being, oh, I don't know, *less dumb* perhaps?

And also be advised. The internet, as an entity, has a dialect. Much of that dialect was born in chatrooms and is pretty much the "IM speak" you disparage, and was born of the necessity to keep verbal commentary as *terse* as possible to save memory. Hence, you have an over-reliance on acronyms.

Among other things, that is, because you also see, as computer memory became less of a constraint, so too did that dialect become more idiosyncratic, and also diverge. Some folks swear by using HTML italics to emphasize their words, but are at a loss then when HTML isn't allowed, and then have to swear and rant at folks who use *stars, or shift-8s* for much the same purpose.

Some swear by emoticons, or smilies, while others hate them. The dialect has grown and multiplied. So I can understand why you'd be frustrated when someone types "idk, *lol*, wtf, rftm, HAND." And that is their whole entire post. I hate lame one-line non-answers myself, I prefer to answer in depth even at the risk of the (more than) occasional run-on (and on) sentence. But...

Again, these are teenagers, and this is the internet. Both have dialects all their own, and both have combined like DNA and multiplied into manifold methods of mangling your Queen's English. I'm not saying this is good or bad, I am however saying that this is just plain reality. It is what it is. No sense railing against it and being completely hated....not when you can spend your time more productively elsewhere online, where people are older and more cultured.

*lol* I hope this helps. I tried fairly hard to not use so much internet dialect this time around. :) Problem is, I tend to be that "wordy old bastid" no one listens to, so yes, YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary).

Thanks for your time and patience! :)

Answer 4

Drives me crazy too.

And some schools are that bad. I used to teach for one university who got upset with me because I would not let students write in im speak. I refused new assignments because they were perpetuating mediocrity.

Answer 5

the answear is very simple :people on this site come from differnt country so sometimes there are some mistakes in the sentences just because their english is probably not very good!that's it...but you are very choosy about it!i think that with this site a lot of people can practise the language don't you think?

Answer 6

Gess thye R

Answer 7

because IM is fun, I always spell check so I don't no why, it's easy er yes to put u instead you,and yes school suck butt

Answer 8

Suzy summed it just fine for me.

Answer 9

maybe