Shorthand for Dummies

If you had told me 15 years ago that I would have friends in middle age who'd add smiley and winky faces -- unironically -- to their correspondence, I would have scoffed indignantly. Sadly, I would have been wrong. :(

As it turns out, I have a number of correspondents -- accomplished and otherwise mature adults -- who unselfconsciously punctuate their emails like nine-year-old girls. :o

It's not just emoticons that get my goat: I despise those stupid instant-message abbreviations. Just the sight of an lol makes me want to put my fist through the screen. Honestly, wtf? If you're too lazy to type it, you can be sure I don't need to read it.

Now the scourge is spreading beyond the keyboard. I've read of efforts, apparently serious, to allow IM "spelling" in the classroom.

And then there are these people, who probably shouldn't be breeding in the first place. They would do well to heed the experts:

Albert Mehrabian, a psychology professor at the University of California who has researched the impact of irregular names, found that "less attractive characteristics were attributed to individuals with less conventionally spelled names.... Unconventional spelling connoted less masculinity for men and less femininity for women [and] more anxiety and neuroticism were attributed to those with less common names."

I think this guy might be onto something:

John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that it was possible that new mothers and fathers had lost the ability to spell forenames.

He added: "Some of it is genuine misspelling; some is parents looking for a unique way to spell a name and some is just carelessness."