Were you always this illiterate or has social networking made you this way?

I can't. I just can't. What has the world come to when proper spelling has become a thing of the past?

Texting. Facebooking. Tweeting. Instant messaging. Etc. Etc.

I am all for alternative methods of communication. During much of my day, I am unable to verbally speak on a phone so access to my network of friends, family and associates via alternative communication is imperative. If I couldn't text, I'd probably die. I admit it. Because most likely, I'm not going to call anyone unless I absolutely have to, yet communication with the outside world is what keeps me going each day. So yeah, I would die if I couldn't text. I adore Facebook for its networking capabilities but in general, I could probably do without it. It's a great tool but texting is my life. So I spend much of time texting and texting and texting and texting…

…And even though I enjoy non-verbal conversation, I have a HUGE problem with non-verbal communication promoting illiteracy amongst Americans who should know better. I am guilty of the occasional (or rather, habitual) ur instead of your're and textn instead of texting and complete elimination of as many vowels as possible in every word I text. Yes, my texts are completely illiterately composed and probably should not be understood by any person with so much as a 3^rd grade education. However, my illiterate texts are intentional and not to represent my spelling and/or literary ability.  So to me, my type of illiteracy is acceptable. (Plus I have a B.A. in English so I dare someone criticize my texting shenanigans).

What I find completely NOT acceptable is when everyday common words that people intentionally try to spell correctly come out….incorrectly.

In a recent tweet, Mike Epps said something that took some context clue investigation for me to understand. Here is what he said: Ladys please teach the young girls about highgean and self worth and respect!!thease our future moms!!!

 (sorry, I'm not savvy enough to do the screen shot thing…)

Ok. Take a deep breath. Where do I start?! Let me first say that I am going to let the word Ladys slide. I am willing to give homeboy the benefit of the doubt and assume that typing one extra letter would have made him late for a gig at his local comedy club.

So now that we are ignoring a clear misspelling of the word 'ladies' let's take a stab at the next eye sore—HIGHGEAN. When I first saw this tweet, I had no clue what dude was talking about. Like, I literally looked at the tweet and was like "Um, ok. WTH?" and kept it moving. Later, when I saw the tweet again, and realized what he was trying to say, my WTH became a WTF and a SMDH. I believe that the word Mr. Epps was trying to type was hygiene. The word hygiene has one less letter that whatever the heck Mike was spelling and is a common enough word that everyone over the age of 12 should be able to spell it. The fact that Mike Epps could not says a lot about a lot.

After completely ravishing a word as simple as hygiene, Mike had the nerve to misspell these. For the life of me I don't understand how these became thease. I mean, again, I could give him the benefit of the doubt and admit that on a QWERTY keyboard, 'a' is next to 's'. But I'm not. Why? Because Mike Epps had to have looked at that tweet before he posted it. Ain't no way THREE huge misspelling missed his eye. AIN'T NO WAY!!! And even if he thought thease wasn't important enough to correct, WHERE THE FLIP DID  HIGHGEAN COME FROM? Come'on man, really? I can't….

I have many examples of stupid illiterate mistakes on Facebook and Twitter that just should never have happened but this post is already long enough. I understand shorthand; believe me I do, but blatant misspellings are totally beyond my comprehension. And don't even get me started on 90s babies who typee likkee dis. Whut makz it ok too typee likee dis n who in da woorl decidd dat dis was a kewl way to cnveyy info? Dis is the mos crazii mess I havee ever seent in ma liifee. Ma brain hurtz now. And Prezdent Obama's peepz is cuttn edukation fundn? Smaart movee D.C., smaart movee. Typee like dis enuff and u iz likely too 4get how to reed and rite.

 OMG.

-Mz.Jonezy

*side note: I am not the best speller in the world but still....highgean though?!