Why the text type?
 

This will be long, but I will do my best not to include unnecessary details. I will also write this one post using ‘regular’ typing, even thought it will take me a long time. I’m not doing this because I feel obligated to, or to defend myself. I’m just letting the people who are genuinely interested in why I use text type know my reason.

My father is dyslexic. The condition negatively affected his life for years, and school was very hard for him. He has adapted as an adult, but he still does things like call me at random times during the day to confirm how to spell a simple word. He isn’t stupid, but when he looks at a word, his brain tells him it looks wrong, even if it isn’t.

I never had any problems in school, straight A’s, with some B’s here and there. My brother had some trouble, and my dad worried that he had passed on the dyslexia. I never really thought twice about it affecting me, until I got to college. Before going to college, I had very little keyboard experience, no typewriter. I had to type up a few reports here and there, but very rarely, since hand written was usually fine. Once I got to college, I noticed that I had to spend tons of time spell checking my papers, for stupid little errors in spelling. I know how to spell the word ”the” for crying out loud, why does it come out “teh” all the time? I know how to spell “like”, why do I always type “liek”? It was very frustrating.

I noticed that when I was typing to my friends and family back home on instant messenger, that I was able to type with more ease using shorthand. I never misspelled or mistyped acronyms or slang, things like “LMBO” or “wutcha” (for ‘what are you’, as in doing), or any other things that were purposeful mistypings. I realized that if I was typing things that were wrong on purpose, my brain would never mess up the message to my hands, like it did with so many simple words. When I started using message boards, it was too time consuming to try and write out every reply like I was writing a paper, to avoid all the mistakes. If I wrote in the short hand I used in IMs and non-formal e-mails, I could reply to many more people in the same short amount of time that I could be online. I didn’t like reading numerous threads I could contribute to, but only having time to help one or two people. Since the message board forums weren’t formal, I made the decision to use the short hand.

The fewer letters I type, the less chance of my brain messing up what I’m trying to spell or type, and the less frustrating it is for me. If I write “you’re” it often comes out something like “your’e”, and I can avoid that by using “Ur”, if U = you and R = are. I only shorten words so they can be read phonetically, or as numbers. (like to and for as 2 and 4). The language is also consistent, so it’s not like people have to figure out some new code every time they read my posts. It’s not like every word is different from normal, just the key words that often came out wrong from me, that could easily be changed into the shorthand. Also, in an attempt to let people get to know me a little better, in an environment where most people bask in anonymity, I tried to type with my accent when possible. (Like leaving the “g” off of most words, since like everyone where I grew up, I don’t pronounce them much in my daily conversations. Some people type ‘y’all’, since it’s such a part of their vocabulary, instead of typing out ‘you all’, and I never see anybody have a problem with it. So “thinkin” instead of “thinking” should be fine from me). I was aware that this may cause people to assume I was not very smart or well educated, but it was a risk I was fine with taking, since I am confident in my intelligence. It could even allow me to know who the judgmental types were.

I cannot control the fact that the message of what I want to type gets messed up somewhere before getting to my fingers at the keyboard. I don’t want sympathy, I’m not trying to say ‘woe is me’ or anything like that. But I think people assume that I use text type just to be different or lazy, and would rather just tell me to ‘be normal’ than to just deal with it. They aren’t used to reading how I type, so they want me to change it, rather than just think for a moment that U = you is pretty obvious. If somebody who they spoke to in real life had a stutter, would they ask them to please speak more clearly, so they were easier to understand? Would they say “I’m not used to listening to your kind of speaking, please fix it when talking to me”? I hope not. No, my typing isn’t as easily understandable as normal typing is. And maybe it is hard for some people to decipher at first. But it’s just a matter of whether they want to or not. Have patience w/ me, as you would with somebody that has a speech impediment, or don’t.
I know my analogy isn’t perfect. A stutterer can’t simply fix their problem at a moment’s notice, while I could take 2 or 3 times as long to type out a post, focusing on forcing my words to come out right, or going back through and spell check fixing many of the words. So how about people who don’t have English as a 1st language? They are no less intelligent than others on the board, but they may have difficulty getting their point across in type, things can be lost in translation. I hate that things are lost in translation between my mind and fingers, but it’s not my fault, and it doesn’t make me less intelligent. When I speak and write by hand, I’m as eloquent as I need to be. Just as people who have English as a second language are often perfectly eloquent in their native tongue.

Between my apparent slight dyslexia, and taking care of my home and kids, this took all afternoon to type up in sections. I hope it flows together to make some sense.

I want to end with this. If text type is too hard for you to read, I understand that you may not reply to me, or may even refuse to even open threads you see I’ve started. I am ok with that! I wanted to let everyone who was interested know why I type this way. It’s not just to be different, or funny, or annoying to posters who have no experience with text or IM shorthand. It’s because it’s the best way for me to communicate on message boards. I almost always use proper grammar and punctuation; it’s annoying to me, and at times hard to understand, when people don’t. I also don’t like when people completely misuse words and phrases. But if I want to help that person out, and I have the time at that moment, I make the effort to figure out what they are trying to say. Maybe they are just being too lazy to type capitals, commas, periods, etc. Maybe they are oblivious to the correct word usage or phrase (ex:.it’s “whether or not” not “rather or not”. And it’s “for all intents and purposes” not “all intensive purposes”). Whatever their reasons, it doesn’t really matter. I’ll reply if I can, and want. Just like everyone should do for me. I know that if I want EVERYONE to be able to read and respond to what I ask, then I will have to take all the extra time to type normally. But I’m usually ok with only getting responses from those who are able to read phonetically.
I’m an honest, outgoing, funny, intelligent, and caring person. Hopefully text type isn’t enough to make everyone assume things to the contrary. And hopefully this whole, long post came across just as informative, no critical or anything.

---Sam:)---

edited cuz I misspelled the title! lol