I...don't like this feeling....

An update that serves no real purpose.

Is the internet and/or mobile text messaging really threatening, if it has not already deteriorated, the English language?

On countless occasions have I encountered people conversing to me in what I believe was once English on MSN or via other forms of internet communication. Surely the internet, and unequivocally mobile text messaging (which will henceforth be referred to as texting), has played a part in the degradation of the two primary departments of the English language; spelling and grammar (and to an extent, punctuation).

It is perfectly understandable how people abbreviate words and phrases such as "Please" to "plz" and "See you tomorrow" to "c u 2morow" while text messaging, seeing as how people are generally in a hurry when texting. However, it completely baffles me as to how one can type in the same format whilst on MSN with the exceptions of a few abbreviations such as "lol", "rofl", "brb" and so forth. What i'm getting at here is the fact that people are able to tlk liek (or lyk) dis ovr msn. I don't see the benefits in typing in such a manner. Is it really to save time? Surely typing one additional letter per word does not constitute as saving time, considering the fact that you're not in some sort of rush (if you are or were, then why bother loading up MSN if you're in a hurry?).
In most scenarios, one could argue they are too lazy to type. As I stated, typing a few additional letters at the cost of a few seconds to clarify the point sounds a lot better than abbreviating words unnecessarily. The time spent on explaining what you just typed or wrote to someone else could have been better spent completing a word.

Then there are those who purposefully abbreviate words to be "cool". Of course, i'm talking about those who abbreviate "Asian" to "azn" and subsequently add words such as "pride", "gangsta" and the like. Sure, you're Asian and you want to express it to the world, but the question is; is it really necessary? Whats the point in being all "I'm an azn_gangsta 4 lyfe"? The point i'm getting at it, what purpose does it serve? To over inflate one's ego? To act like the tough e-bully? The thought process of such people baffles me to no end.

I have seen in many instances, when one would abbreviate a word for the sake of lengthening it, thus completely defeating the purpose of abbreviating a word in the first place. Why someone would type "daii" rather than "day" perplexes me. Last time i checked, such people usually type "and" as "nd" and "you" as "u".

Alternating caps. Now this is something I scarcely come across, yet I still find it equally irritating. How someone can tYpE iN aLtERnAtInG cApS and yet have their eyes intact is beyond me. There is absolutely no reason why anyone, and i mean anyone, to type in alternating caps lest they aim to be a complete besetment upon whomever. Not only does it make whatever they're typing a lot more difficult to decipher, but also, it requires more effort to type. It's pretty much a lose/lose situation (unless they aim to annoy), so I don't see why anyone bothers.

Now, grammar plays an important part in the language as much as spelling does, but a question that people seldomly come across is; "Why is good grammar needed" or rather, "Why good grammar?". This somewhat links and covers the topic at hand of which "good grammar" is not as evident as it is nowadays than it was in the past, partially due to the introduction of "textspeak", "leetspeak" and/or "netspeak" and the lack of respect and recognition for the language, something which has been long lost.
So to understand how the internet, and not so much the texting, has deteriorated our use of the English language, we first must understand the importance of grammar, or more specifically; punctuation and capitalisation.

Punctuation. Yes, the bane of all little kids around. To properly structure a sentence, one would require the use of this so-called "punctuation". The importance of the apostrophe is undeniable. It astounds me the amount of people who use "it's" and "its" reciprocally as if it were the same. It's not. It's is a contraction of "it has" or "it is" whereas its is used as a possessive. The amount of people online who alternate between "it's" and "its" without understanding its meaning will not get very far in life (slight exaggeration there). But in all seriousness, it's still very important.
There are plenty more types of punctuations I could cover such as the comma and the ellipsis etc but that'd go off on a tangent (not if it already has).  I'll just stress that punctuation is important as it aids us in differing the meanings between two sentences such as the infamous:
Woman without her man, is nothing.
Woman. Without her, man is nothing.
Although subtle, it stresses the importance of punctuation and how it could dramatically alter the meaning of a sentence completely.

Capitalisation (or capitalization) plays an important role on par with punctuation. I'll just keep it short and say that capitalisation is the difference between saying:
I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse
I helped my uncle jack off a horse

All in all, I guess you could say that the internet and texting is partially to blame for the gruesome butchering and defiling yet gradual death of the English language.

ps: For those who type in proper grammatically correct sentences, I salute to you!

The above represents my views and my views only. In no way am I liable for any offense taken or injury inlicted upon the reader because I can, and as a result, am awesome :3