A E I O U

We only have 5 vowels in the English alphabet. 5! Therefore we should make as much use of them as possible no? One of the things that I am completely anal about (completely!) is the use of good grammar, punctuation and spelling. So being an avid fan of Facebook (FB) (yes I admit, I am a FB stalker - it's quite sad really!), emails and text messaging, it only winds me up further (should I have used farther?) when I see the English language being ripped to shreds because people can't differentiate between they're, there or their, you're or your, affect or effect - the list is endless.

or when they dont use any punctuation no full stops no commas no capital letters at the start of sentences.no spaces after full stops or any kind of punctuation.No apostrophes.

It makes reading text so difficult. If you're going to write something that you obviously think is worth reading, then at least make it readable!

Which brings me on to the use of vowels or rather the lack of!

Example 1:
"This is so gonna sound lyk an April Fools!! Bt u knw dat phD I applied 4 @ UCLA 4 a laugh... DEYV INVITD ME 4 AN INTERVIEW!!!!! Dunno wat 2 do! Ring u ltr xxx "

Fair enough - this was in a text message (trying to save texts and money) but it was from a grown adult! She could have written it out properly and still only sent 1 text!

Example 2:
"Yea, I dnt thnk I am eithr I ges bt I hav bn actng lyk I am! Thanx 4 da girlie chat yst mrs. Hav fun 2mrw x2

Same person - but again, she could have easily used the vowels! However, I'm willing to let these slide because they are texts and there is a limitation on the number of characters that can be used.

Example 3 (taken from FB):
"yh me bless ini..ntn mn juz jamin..klkl..cum da dai..it'l b jwkz ini..styl..vere enada?nefin nu?tc da x"

WTF?! Alright, I know that two of those words are an attempt at written Tanglish but the rest of it?! And when did ".." become punctuation? Is it the end of a sentence? Should we pause?! Seriously?!

Example 4 (taken from FB)
"im crious i aint a vry jkative person im havin hell ryt nw iv been wid a gal 4 2 yrs an stuff r gtn bad2

Give me a break! You've got wall space on FB so you can use the God damn vowels!

However, what grates me the most (and I remember that Darwin might have mentioned this a loooong while ago so I will find the link and add it at the end) is the people who write like this:

"i iz a COL student me have lotz of friendz gut 1nce and bad 1nce i izt known as a G But iZ nOt a G iZ just A noRmaL StudeNt jUsT aSk 4..."

Why are some letters capitals and others not? Doesn't it take much longer to write things like that? Why do you do it to yourselves (and more importantly us as the reader!)?

Now I'm too scared to spellcheck this as I've probably made lots of mistakes!

And for the record - Darwin's post (sorry Darwin - I'm not sure if this is OK within the etiquette of blogging!).

*Disclaimer* - I never claimed to be great at spelling, punctuation or grammar but I do like to read text that is readable which is why I posted this.
If you notice the mistakes (of which there are probably a few), don't berate me. I'm only human! :)
And I'm sorry for the rant!