Don't Throw A Brick Straight Up.

I read a website once listing survival tips for really stupid people. It was named after one of the tips - "Don't throw a brick straight up". I think this sort of thing should be made into a government direct mailer and sent to every house in Britain.

People who know me (these are very few, on account of my intolerance for stupid people and their overwhelming numbers) know that I'm a grammar stickler. A pedant. Possibly a dinosaur. I love grammar, I hate to see it abused (although I make allowances for style, I, for instance, use far too many commas). Knowing this means that whenever anyone has to engage in written communication with me, they usually begin by apologising for the inevitable spelling and grammar mistakes.

It is grammar mistakes in packaging, advertising and business literature that I find particularly irritating. If you're an individual, I don't care. Much. I do a bit, I confess, but I won't hate you for it, I'll just scowl a bit. If you don't know, if you're ignorant, then that's fair enough. If you do know, manage to write properly at school/work/wherever and just decide to omit the vowels and swap consonants for numbers when talking to me, then you can die in a fire.

I view it as just plain rude, if someone's capable of communicating properly and coherently then they should. If they can't be bothered to expend the effort to talk to me without sounding retarded, simply because it's apparently quicker for them, I can't be bothered to listen to them or spend ten minutes trying to decipher "lol im goin out w/m8s c u l8r lol" and turn it into proper English.

The reason I'm mentioning all this (and probably offending a great many of you in the process, oh well, if I can't be an intolerant, intellectual snob on my own blog, where can I?) is because earlier today I followed a link to one of MichellePhan's youtube videos, and discovered this in her channel comments.

If you can't read it, I'll transcript:

that lady gaga is really good me and my dance cru had our mack up artis do it to us but i think you shoud had doun ti to our faces but we a hole totle of 5000 points
and if you wan't to now lady gaga just ask me becauce my sister nows her xoxoxoxoxoxoxox i love u
ps i love you is a speach that my sister lady gaga and me do

All right, they weren't talking to me, but still. How can anyone that stupid survive life? I'm honestly amazed they spelt their screen name correctly.

You can use the excuse that, maybe, English isn't their first language. That's a wash - surely someone learning English as a second language should learn it properly, with grammar rules, and not learn the abbreviations first? Maybe they're dyslexic? Well, my brother, mother, and boyfriend are all dyslexic, and none of them type like that.