Less than words can say

I'm a grammar nerd.

I admit it. Actually, I even embrace it.

I get a secret thrill every time someone asks me to look over a paper or a cover letter, and I delight in adding semicolons and changing who to whom.

But the excitement I feel sprinkling in commas is nothing to the revulsion that grips me when I receive an instant message that reads, "hey i haven't talked 2 u in 4ever :)."

Oh, the pain. Not only is the eye immediately accosted by the lack of capitalization and punctuation, but the deadly trifecta of 2, u, and 4 are also present, along with the stomach-turning smiley-face "emoticon."

I used to avoid such abuse of the English language merely by logging off my instant-messaging program, but lately I've discovered it in text messages, Facebook posts, e-mails, even snail-mail letters.

I'm sure it says something awful about society at large. Maybe we're too lazy to spell out words or our fingers have become too lethargic to hit the shift key or our tiny brains cannot retain information about spelling and grammar. However you spin it, we don't come out looking good.

In some cases, language compression does make sense - it can be difficult to type out messages on those itty-bitty cell-phone buttons, let alone long, grammatically correct ones.

But by and large, I think it's more about a culture that's always on the go, insistent on moving faster and getting things done quicker than ever before. By replacing to with 2 and for with 4, Internet users believe they're responding more efficiently, shaving off the fractions of a second it might take to type out the whole word. And the minutes they save each year (minutes!) - well, I'm sure they'll use them wisely.

As for the emoticons (a combination of the words emotion and icon), they're a whole different story. Largely based on the smiley face, that bright-yellow ball of noseless good cheer that Harvey Ball created in 1963, they appeal as a way to bring emotion to inflectionless online text.

Coupling a potentially insulting comment with a winking face makes it clear that it's a joke, and adding a simple smile to a message suggests excitement where it might otherwise be unclear.

So far so good. But is it really necessary to use a blushing face to convey embarrassment or a barfing face (yes, they're out there) to convey disgust? Writing - be it on paper, vellum, or clay tablet - has been serving us well for several millennia. Shakespeare, whom many consider the ultimate source on the language of love, found a way to get by without the kissing smiley face.

So go on, call me a grammar nerd.

Tell me I'm being silly, and go on saving precious seconds using u for you and R for are. I'll just sit here reading Romeo and Juliet, and it will be my smile, not that of a yellow floating head, that will tell you how happy I am.