Use them or lose them

And yet another bit of news to make my editorial heart shrivel up and die: A teacher in Orlando, Fla., has reported that she's finding more and more instant-messaging spelling errors in essays and papers turned in by her students. Kids are using words such as "b4," "ur," "2" and "wata" in place of the proper usage. In fact, junior high and high school teachers nationwide say they see the same trend: The words have become so commonplace in children's social lives that the spellings are finding their way into these writing assignments.
From an AP article: Fourteen-year-old Brandi Concepcion, a pupil of [the teacher's], said "wit," "da," and "dat" -- used in place of with, the and that -- sometimes creep into her homework. "I write like that in the rough draft, but I try to catch the mistakes before I turn in the final draft," she said. Some educators, like David Warlick, of Raleigh, N.C., see the young burgeoning band of instant messengers as a phenomenon that should be celebrated. Teachers should credit their students with inventing a new language ideal for communicating in a high-tech world, said Warlick, who has authored three books on technology in the classroom. And most avoid those pitfalls once they enter college, said Larry Beason, director of freshman composition at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Ala. "Some of the same kids that I teach now were probably guilty of techno spellings in high school," Beason said. "But most students realize that they need to put their adolescent spellings behind them by the time they get to college."
This hurts my head. That kids are growing up thinking that these spellings, or others that short-change words, may become acceptable is enough to ... well ... make me really irritable.