JV asked me to comment on a Washington Post article from December 2006 about educators and students struggling with abbreviated IM and text messaging jargon slipping into schoolwork.

Stanton shared one of his favorite pieces of correspondence: "hi prof how are u culd u tell me my xm grade - tim."

"It bothers me at one level, but I try not to let it get under my
skin," he said. "But I am concerned [students] won't be successful if
they don't know how to communicate on a formal basis. The first time
they send a goofy message to the boss, they're going to be out."

JV asks "is this a problem, or should it be accepted as an evolution of the language?" I think it could be neither. I can't blame teachers for thinking it's their job to mark this, like any nonstandard usage in a piece of writing, as an error. I also can't blame the students for communicating with their friends in a way that makes sense to them, and for sometimes slipping into that mode when writing for school. But it's probably premature to say that this is an evolution of language. It's a jargon created by a new communication technology, like the telegram. Perhaps it will fall by the wayside with changes in the technology. Or maybe it will become widespread and standard when the students of today are teachers.

A few years ago, after several weeks of grading papers filled with IM-speak and other jargon, Goodman took matters into her own hands.

When the students showed up for class the following day, she asked
them to read a paragraph she had written using many of the same
phrases they used in their papers.

"chaucer's the canterbury tales r a scathing attack on the catholic
church of the late 1300s . . . he uses the descriptions of many
pilgrims (including several very sketchy religious dawgs) 2 deliver a
veiled message about the mad corruption he like saw in the church the
greed that some of his characters have 4 money, represents like the
use of church scratch 2 build some pretty tight cathedrals."

I wonder what her point here actually was. I guess the point was just, stop writing this way. But wasn't the meaning still clear to the students, or perhaps even more clear than usual? And let's not forget that other jargons, legal for example, are probably more harmful to understanding than this will ever be.