excel

I will respond to you because you, unlike Minnesotan, have tried to present a reason and in a civil manner.

First of all, there is much debate among literacy scholars on whether proper spelling and many grammatical rules are worth any real value. I do not remember the details of the debate; I took my courses on literacy some time back . You will have to look up the references yourself if you want to, but this debate does exist.

Second, many (including myself) do not respect people who make a fuss of such trivial matters, instead of focussing on the content. We may or may not like textspeak personally, but most of us would certainly think lowly of the people who insult the writer. For evidence of this, you dont have to look any further than the reaction to Minnesotan's offensive comment in this thread and in the original thread.

Third, the context of the textspeak and the extent of its use are important too. Be assured that I did not use textspeak in any of my publications! However, when the context is providing helpful information in a free forum for which the writer expects no personal benefit, then it is absolutely the writer's prerogative to decide on whether to use textspeak or not. A reader may at best politely request the writer not to do so, but it is the writer's call. In general, it is presumptuous and arrogant to demand that other people do things according to your personal biases. Furthermore, If anyone has a problem understanding simple things like "u" used instead of "you", then it is his/her problem and it does not reflect well on that person's intelligence either. If s/he has a problem understanding full-blown textspeak, that may be a different matter.