Cymotrichous. Greek in origin, meaning wavy-haired. A 12-year-old recently spelled this to win the Scripp’s National Spelling Bee. Granted, this kid is probably a child prodigy who will out-perform and out-earn us all later in life (yes, even we esteemed Davidson students). Nevertheless, if an 8th grader can spell cymotrichous, you should have at least a tenuous grasp on basic vocabulary in texts.
The Textperts are pretty judgmental people. We will judge you immensely if you confuse homophones. You’re ≠ your. Too ≠ to ≠ two. Their ≠ they’re ≠ there. These words are not synonyms. Do not treat them as such. Read before you hit send! If you can’t catch these in proofreading, you have no business texting because you are probably in third grade. Or illiterate.
Misspellings are equally as unforgiveable. You have Autocorrect. If Autocorrect tells you that you are wrong, you most likely are. If Autocorrect fails, here is a list of elementary spelling rules: http://grammar.about.com/od/words/tp/spellrules.htm. There’s even a test at the end. If you don’t know how to spell a word, find a synonym. If you don’t know what a synonym is, stop reading this article now and go get a dictionary.
The Textperts are a little more lenient concerning grammar in texts. We don’t always end our texts with periods, we commit the occasional comma splice, and we certainly don’t capitalize all of our proper nouns. Many of these oversights are intentional: if you’re too formal in a text, you sound like a weirdo. You don’t want to sound like a weirdo. Emails, though, are a different story—you don’t want your boss/professor/whoever to think you’re a complete idiot. Spell check is awesome and for winners.
There are few incidents in which misspellings and grammatical errors are acceptable. Drunk texts: we can’t (or shouldn’t, at least) be held accountable for what our brains translate to our thumbs under the influence of cheap vodka (or Pika Punch—recent experiences necessitate a non-negotiable life ban on this libation). Life-changingly important gossip: obviously, relaying the message that some trick-ass hussy hooked up with the boy you’re lusting after or that He Who Hath Murdered Your Soul and Crushed Your Heart has been spotted in the Union is way more important. Texting parents: my mom never, ever uses punctuation or capitalizes in texts because she doesn’t know how to—hi honey what are you doing dad and i are grocery shopping—and when I text her back, I forget to punctuate as well. Free pass.
However, if you are sober, the message imparted is not life changing, and/or you’re under the age of forty, and you’re still misspelling, then it’s time to pay more attention to what you’re texting. Why? Because sounding like your reading comprehension level hasn’t surpassed the Berenstain Bears is not hot, and we’re all laughing at you whenever we receive one of your spelling-error rich texts. In fact, if you’re a frequent enough offender, we’ll probably start using your name as an insult when we, the ladies of textiquette, make the occasional spelling error. “Don’t pull a Goldenburgowitz!” we might say, in reference to our friend Mitchell Goldenburgowitz, King of the Wrong Homophone.
To really drive in what we mean, here’s a sample collection of the worst misspellings we’ve gotten – English Majors beware, these are somewhat graphic.
1. “I’m not aloud to go out tonight”
2. “Wear are you?”
3. “Your looking hot tonight” – I’m sorry, my what is looking hot tonight?
4. “I really lik you” – hmm…you should really double check that spelling, phonically this has an entirely different meaning to what may have been intended
5. “I cant, I have to right a paper”
Now, it should be noted that intentional misspellings, such as “Y isn’t he txting me back?” and “Cuz U R crazy” are acceptable. It’s a text message, and we’re down with the one letter spellings and abbrevs (see our previous article on abbreviations), as long as they don’t carry over to emails, papers, etc. It’s just those glaring mistakes that make you look like a total goon that really ought to be avoided.
In other news, guest contributor and hilarious writer Mike Goldberg will soon be penning an article on the art of seduction via text. Hold onto your panties. If you have any hilarious texting mishaps to share, Tweet us (http://twitter.com/#!/TextiquetteBlog), email us (perkinsa19@gmail.com), or comment!
XOXO, the Textperts
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