Attacks in the story comments attached to each NapaValleyRegister.com article take many forms — all of them disturbing since this should be a forum for community debate — and I find it sad to realize how many people cannot debate a topic without attacking the messenger.
The latest attack is directed at those who choose to use their text messaging or leet-speak form of communication when they reply to a story online. When doing so, other commenters attack them for their use of the English language in a way they do not agree with.
Why is the method a person chooses to communicate with something that should make people so irate and leave them in a position where they have to attack the messengers?
In one article about a gang-related murder, some of the people commenting have used text-like and leet-speak posts to get their messages across. In doing so, others have let loose to attack them and their communication styles in what I see as a very sad statement of the ability to accept other views.
One commenter referred to the method as “Gansta grammer.” Yes, they attack others for their use of the language, but have spelling errors in their own attacks, while others toss in comments such as, “seriously, most of you need to learn to spell,” “Are the young people in Napa as stupid as they write? Ever hear of a dictionary or a sentence?” and more.
Welcome to online communicating, folks. If you are going to participate in online community debates, you should understand people are going to communicate in various methods, including that of a standard “text,” language.
If this is bothersome or offensive to you, well, it is time to get used to the fact not every person chooses to communicate in the same method you do.
Admittedly, even some of those defending the text messaging style add their own typo’s in their replies, with items like, “Wow r u serious? All you people are actually going to get on here and argue about spelling and grammer???????? You gotta be jokeing me. Who cares if people write in text messaging form, that does not mean that they didn't go to school or that they don't have a education, or that they should be considerd GANG MEMBERS!”
Claims, however, that choosing to use leet-speak methods to communicate online means these individuals are uneducated and are not to be considered as part of mainstream society is pretty extreme in my book, such as this comment indicates.
”If a writer wants to be taken seriously by anyone outside his or her circle, that writer should observe the conventions of written language. Writers who use "u" for "you" and "r" for "are" and "lil" for "little", can't spell or punctuate and don't much care are consigning themselves to the fringe. The power structure will ignore them.”
While I don’t agree with many comments on one side or the other, one person summed my feelings up quite well by posting, “you are writing ONLINE in and ONLINE blog! That sort of typing is not "gangster". it's not even "youth". that is a style of writing that was created by computer nerds decades ago! so most likely, by YOUR generation! it is actually listed as its own language and NVR wrote an article on it within the last 6 months!”
That article by Jillian Jones, for those of you wishing to educate yourself, is available by clicking here.
As for being ignored by “the power structure,” seems leet-speak made it all the way to the dictionary, as Merriam-Webster named “w00t”(an expression of joy) its 2007 word of the year.
Dan Ross is NapaValleyRegister.com’s Multimedia Producer. He writes on local, state and national issues. He can be reached at 265.2264 or dross@napanews.com.
Correction: An earlier version of this column misspelled the word 'debate' in the first paragraph. The writer pleads exhaustion as a sad excuse for the error.
