My daughter and I recently had a conversation about the emails she was sending out. She’s only 11, so I regularly read her emails - what she’s sent, what she’s received, and I noticed a trend that I didn’t like. Bad grammar, and poor spelling. She’s an excellent writer and straight out student, but put a keyboard in front of her and she forgets how to use proper English. With became “wit”, the letter g went mysteriously missing from several words all together (hangin’, sleeping, seein’) and she no longer seemed to know how to use punctuation or a capital letter. Maybe I’m a hard ass, but I don’t think sending email is an excuse to start typing like a street thug. If said street thug had access to a keyboard, monitor, and modem. She’s cleaned up her writing now, without making a fuss, and I’m pleased.

If you don’t have your own 11 year old to entertain you with bad grammer, you can visit the English-to-12-Year-Old-AOLer Translator. I had a great timing typing normal text into it and seeing the results. For example, the 2nd paragraph of this entry, when put into the translator, becomes:

IF U DON’T HAEV UR OWN 1 Y3AR OLD 2 3NTARTANE U WIT BAD GRMM3R U CAN VISIT DA ENGLISH-2-12-Y3AR-OLD-AOLER TRANSLA2R!11!!11!1 WTF LOL I HAD A GRAAT TIMNG TYPNG NORMAL TAXT IN2 IT AND SENG DA RASULTS!1!!1 FOR 3XMPLA DA 2ND PARAGRAPH OF THES 3NTRY WHEN PUT IN2 DA TRANSLA2R BCOMAS

Amazing, isn’t it? So in touch with the younger generation.