Grammatical Horrors

I live in a world where grammar is everything. I'm sorry but I do. Probably because I'm obsessive compulsive or a perfectionist that I feel everything has to be right... even grammar. It's an atrocity to read a paragraph full of grammatical errors beyond your wildest imagination. When I was a kid, my grandmother required me to speak English wherever I went so that I wouldn't be able to commit the same grammatical mistakes she did. My family sent me to the best schools and according to my uncle, my ability to communicate in the English language (sad to say, I'm better in English than in Filipino) will be a lot of help when I take the bar exams. Even if I am better in communicating in English, I know the basic Filipino rules on grammar and spelling. I'm careful to follow the few grammatical rules I remember from high school (thank you, Ginang De Vera, wherever you may be). Yes, I make mistakes too but they're never intentional. So you could imagine my shock and horror in reading a funny email from my cousin about how people fill out their friendster profiles.

Let me give you an example. And I quote:

Hometown: nAVOetAst
About Me: aqOuh?? .. cHimPle LAng.. bUT cAn maKE yUr hEAd tURn ,, *HoTcHiC**sEXy dAw..cHAvii nG mGAh fWEnDz qEw .. sVi qEw nAMn.. mAdAnDa aqEw.. maArTE?/..sObra ** hiHi.. nDi mHEii mAarTE.. kAla nYOuh lAng yUn,, kSHi cHigURo .. yU fOUnd mE.. wEAriNg uNiqUe eAriNgs..USing mAkEuP.. oWeYs lOoKing mY fACe in tHE mirror.. mAarTE bAh yUN?
who i want to meet: "xA aCcoUnt qEw..kHit cHiNU pwEde.. kHit ikA'y mUkhang.. tAtaNgAPEn kiTAh bsTAh bAH TEZti cOUh aAhh"

End quote.

Now, tell me you liked reading that. Tell me your eyes didn't come this close (this is the part where I hold my thumb and forefinger so close together) to bleeding and popping out. My English grammar and Filipino teachers would have strokes just reading that.
I blame text messaging for the decline in... our literacy rate in terms of grammar. And rap songs. I just get so irked reading paragraphs written in text linggo... come on, people! You don't have to press the same button five times to get to a specific letter. There it is, the whole alphabet laid down before you. And I don't think that you have to limit your paragraphs to a hundred and sixty letters so the shortcuts for words are not necessary. If you say that friendster has only so much space for the items, then quit inserting the H's and the pa-cute language. You think we enjoy seeing that? Instead of inserting unnecessary letters, why not spell other words fully and correctly? I admit, again, I make mistakes in grammar but the key element here is intent. They do this on purpose. Why? Why? What higher purpose would it serve?

I had a Norwegian friend who told me that she found Filipinos interesting... especially the fact that we could speak and write in English better than most Americans. That was ten years ago, before text messaging. I wonder what she'll say now if I forward my cousin's funny friendster stuff email to her.

The Americans, according to one of my favorite professors, bastardized the English language with their pronunciation and accent and slang. So if American English is the bastardized version... I think that these text-linggo addicts are responsible for a massacre-- or at least a double murder. The English language isn't their only victim here... they're also murdering our own language. I think that's the bigger crime.