If you can read and write (in English), then you should be able to use at least semi-proper English.
My biggest pet peeve with the internet (mainly bulletins like those found on myspace and l33t sp33k) is that it isn't real English that everyone can understand.
I bring this up now after seeing a mum concerning a "bulletin" where only a linguist may be able to read it clearly and without mentally adding in or re-spelling certain words to make sense out of it.
I see these kind of bulletins all the time on Myspace and I generally don't bother replying to them. Every so often, I'll find someone online that talks to me like that and I'll explain my pet peeve and they'll stop talking to me or will take the time to properly spell things out.
Is this really so difficult to achieve? I've seen people misspelling "cat" on myspace...and these are literate people, I've talked with them quite a bit outside of myspace.
How painful can it possibly be to take the extra 2 minutes to type real wordes...
