well it seems we agree on at least one thing - that a site such as this, which is dedicated to improving typing skills, is not an acceptable forum for sloppy writing styles.

I do think there is a time and place for the style. Obviously a site that is focused on typing and grammar being a relevant part of that is the wrong time and place. There also are those who ignorant though I'm hesitant to blame that on texting and more inclined to blame the public school system that fails to educate the masses. My mistakes definitely stem from that more so than any use of text talk. And for the fact that phones no longer the need for shortcuts, I believe it's irrelevant. It's a meme of sorts (a meme in the original sense, not in the internet joke sense.) People either grew up typing on the older style phones or were largely exposed to the style at a young age thus it propagates and becomes the norm. Another point is that grammar and spelling are largely suggestions within the grand scheme of things.

I agree with what you're saying about older-style phones...but that is not the case with new phones. I stand by my opinion that texting language is inefficient and is killing the English language. Do the terrible quotes and comments on this site not prove that? People are losing the ability to formulate proper sentences for crying out loud

I mean that is the case in some instances but most of the time it's done to speed up the time it takes to type out a message. Of course the acronyms are a perfect example of this but another common technique is to remove vowels from words. Like, "thx" which is shorter. Three characters isn't a lot but it does add up over time. Plus I think it mostly stems from traditional cell phones where one had to press the same button multiple times for certain characters so any given character could take a disproportionate amount of time to type, leading to the shortcuts we have today. It's not quite as necessary as it once was though and some of the shortcuts I could definitely do without.

I disagree completely. I don't think that texting language is more efficient at all. Oftentimes, texts are longer as idiots randomly insert extra, unnecessary letters. Also, trying to read the garbage in texts takes a considerable amount of time - so how is that efficient?

I think the argument that texting is killing our language is one made in bad faith. The English language has for a long time has changed out of the need to become more accommodating. I honestly think that texting language is just another logical step to making it more efficient to communicate ideas, especially when you recognize the time and place where it should be used.

Sorry everyone! I just noticed a typo in my submission. I have typed "comcompose" when I meant to type "compose". I have submitted a request to have it changed. My apologies for the confusion