@Green Gables Fan: It's most likely supposed to mean 'up to'. I would never use that sort of language myself, as in writing like that, but I've seen enough examples of it to at least being able to guess what they mean.

Regarding commas and grammar rules in general, they can vary from language to language. As an example Danish seems to use comma a lot more than English. And well, I'll admit that I probably use them a bit too often but I guess I'm sort of just using them in the same way Dark puts an exclamation mark after a Word to emphasize it.

GreenGablesFan, if that wasn't something a lot of people would fall for it'd be hilarious. Right up there with girls who get pregnant then worry their baby'll drop while they're on the toilet.

Hi.
It doesn't mean anything. I made it up on the spot. What I was getting at was that people use stupid short hand sometimes that no one can understand. and p was meant to mean up. as in. hi what are u up to today? I went to the shops and it was fun.

As an advance placement graduate who spent a fair amount of time being schooled into a grammar and spelling Nazi, there comes a time when I want to thump skulls on the internet regarding these issues, particularly among people I believe are supposed to know better.  ON the other hand, that sounds so intolerant I can barely help but wonder who's going to resent me for making such a statement.  Part of the problem with vigorous education is that while it gives us knowledge and wisdom to practice the closest thing to perfection we can attain, it also hardens us to the idea that other people have their own comfort zones.  As has been pointed out above, news articles and reviews seem like areas that should constantly be monitored for spelling and grammar and possibly punctuation errors, which is something I've tried my best to do when writing out anything that wasn't a private message.  Even then, sometimes I find myself absentmindedly opening word for the sake of making sure whatever it is I'm writing isn't completely doomed to illiteracy.  That in itself presents an issue; convincing people that I am a simple person rather than some complex entity that desires everything in orderly fashion and cannot stand imperfection is almost impossible.

And then I arrive at a topic like this one and wonder if I haven't done enough for fear of being mistaken as something I'm not.  I ask myself with honesty if I could and should have done better, because I see the critical side of the community and the concern with its image.  I marvel at how people cry out in protest at mistakes which have been made over and over again, rather than stopping to think about how the people who are writing today are writing as opposed to not writing at all.

Yes, the AP student is advocating for those who don't always choose to make spelling a high priority.  Life isn't comprised completely of silver linings. No, I am not being a pessimist; I am being a realist.  Ten years ago, it was not uncommon for me to hear people of all ages complain about how frustrating technology was as a whole.  Today, my sixty something year old godfather has finally given in and started using botha PC and a smartphone and has even purchased devices for his grandchildren.  I shouldn't have to tell any of you that at his age, spelling is far from his mind over all when it comes to updating his facebook, and yet I am thrilled that he is at the very least writing still on top of using technology, rather than giving all of it up as a bad joke.  I also believe that there is something to be said for the creativity that has arisen among the younger generations when it comes to shortening writing in general, given the forceful character limits of texting and tweeting.  These things do not concern me as much as how society as a whole seems to be heading for social disfunction.  I can't help but wonder where feelings lie when we text and IM, how accurately we can identify and perceive someone else from reading their words on a screen, through a screen reader or braille display, or what we actually teach each other and learn from each other anymore, knowing that in all reality we don't have to because the information is stored away for our convenience at a later time.

All that to end my opinionated ramblings on this note; the sighted world is full of many of the same errors.  We're pointing fingers at each other in this small community because it's easier to do, but I challenge you critics to go to a comments page that isn't generally full of perfectionists and the overall things one might associate with geek-itis,  but filled with the writings of every day people, and not find a similar recurring issue or issues to the ones presented here in.

by the way, I'm a geek too, which is how I justify that last statement.  Just figured I'd point that out.  Perhaps that's why I've been drawn to Miriani once again.  I have my moments; I just finished a JLA book. 

Nocturnus, I have to agree with you. Particularly about higher education. When I was in regular school, grade school through high school, I really didn't pay attention to spelling or give it much thought because most of the teachers were willing to let those spelling errors slide. Once I got to college it began to make a difference in my grades, and then of course I actually had a reason to care. I had this one English instructor who would take 5 points off for every misspelled word in a student's  composition. So as a result I could write a great composition and actually fail simply because there were too many spelling errors in it. So I became something of a grammar and spelling Nazi determined to be as perfect as I could when composing reports, essays, short stories, speeches, or whatever the assignment happened to be.

Now, I am sure there are many who would find that instructor a real ball breaker and would resent what she did. However, I ended up having respect for her extremely strict grading standards. What she was trying to do was prepare students for the real world where if someone goes out into the work force he or she is to conduct themselves with professionalism, what they write can make or brake their chances at getting a job with an employer, and if it is an add for a company, an important document like a manual, etc it can positively or negatively reflect upon the employer you work for. Therefore she had to be strict when it came to grading a student's composition.

The point I want to make here is that I have gone through the educational equivalent of boot camp, and have come out the other side with a much higher respect for presenting myself as a well educated person.  So its irritating to me to see people on various forums, mailing lists, who just don't give a darn and have lots of errors in their posts that could be corrected with a minimal amount of proofreading. Perhaps the greatest irony of all is I often find that people of a foreign nationality, who are not native English speakers, often times have better writing than those who supposedly speak the language as their native tongue. There is something obviously wrong with that picture.

I guess for me personally having been through boot camp, per se, I now realize writing is one way in which I can combat age old stereotypes about people who are blind. I am an educated person and therefore there is no reason to be lazy when I can spend a minute or so to proofread everything I write weather it be to a forum, a mailing list, a site, etc because I am consciously aware  of the fact weather I want to be or not I am a representative of blind people everywhere the same as if I were publishing some written material for a company. What I write will not only form public opinions about me individually it can have some influence on how people view those of us who are blind as well. It is being aware of that fact that makes me want to thump a few blind members of forums and mailing lists I encounter that unequivocally say spelling, grammar, and proper punctuation  doesn't matter as long as they can get their point across.

@brad as someone who's been through mainstreem school and speshel schools I can completely agree with you their. I know my spelling isn't really the best, but I have been slowly improving and making attempts to change it. My brail, however, is far below that. I can write in it, no problem. When it comes to reading it however, its a horible time for me. And as i've told everyone in school, i've been reading it ever since I can remember. I'm starting to think it partly has to do with the fact I still have some quite useful vision, so whenever i'm reading my hands are on the braile but my eyes are focused someware else, making it extremely difficult to focus on what i'm actualy reading.

Well, When I am writing, I'm also nervous about my mistakes as well. but I hope everyone wouldn't mind me. because obviously English is not my first language...

BryanP, I totally agree with you. I cannot stand the u instead of you, r instead of are, and 2 instead of to. I've seen something like that no more than three times in my life, but my patience for it is virtually gone. I'm more lenient about writing lowercase I when it should've been uppercase, but the only reason I let it go is because I do it myself in typos. It's a fairly easy typo to make, but when people do it constantly, it's clear that they either don't know, or don't care, about this very simple rule that most English speakers learn in kindergarten. Other languages like Spanish, for example,  don't have this, so that's the only case where I'd truly accept the mistake(s) and not get aggravated about it.
But then you have those people who are spelling Nazis, and not the good kind. I speak from experience here because I had to deal with one of those. Those kind of Nazis aren't afraid to troll E-mail lists and forums, only replying to say that someone needs to learn how to spell check or they're incompetent. I actually defended the guilty ones because I was so tired of the trolling, especially on an informal list, and the only response I got back was, "if you're the only one to join this guy's fan club, so be it and shut up." So now, I defend no-one and stay out of it. I myself never use spell check and will admit that I've made spelling mistakes, without batting an eyebrow, assuming that I have actually been able to see well enough to know what that looks like, which I haven't. I do agree that proper spelling is needed formally, but so long as we're in an informal setting, and I can read what you're saying without going character by character trying to piece it together, I'm probably not going to call you on it, and if I do, it'll be a brief moment in passing outside of a public board.
After high school, I stopped using braille because I was tired of dealing with the Braille Note. AT the time, it wasn't the device itself that was troubling me, it was just inconvenience. I would be using the Braille Note to write word documents which would then have to be transferred to the PC. I would then have to open them on the PC, check them for translation errors which happened occasionally with ambiguous grade II symbols. Ultimately I would E-mail these proofread documents to my teachers. I figure, why not just write them on the PC to begin with? So no transferring and no unnecessary triple checking for translation errors. Well, that all works out fine, but I've given up braille for speech because it's faster. My spelling has worsened a fair bit, and I have to look up words that I was at least fairly confident in before. And let's face it, if you're in college with a laptop or a Braille Note, it's not hard to know what sighted people are going to connect with more. Classmates connect with a laptop more just because they know what it is, and you can engage in conversation about mainstream computer stuff at least to a point. Professors feel better knowing just how close I am to being like their other students who have laptops, and don't have to accommodate the simplistic, now unstable functions of my Apex. I still can read and write braille adequately, and could use it full time with just a few minutes of breaking back in.
Another thing comes into play here with spelling, is formal vs informal dialect. I know very few people who write decently in an informal setting. I check some of my friends' messages just to see what their writing looks like. I've even done it with professors too. I've seen things that are totally appalling to the point where you can barely tell what they're saying because it's full of stupid informal crap that synths hate, to actually well constructed sentences with the occasional typo. Heck, Jaws now has a huge dictionary with the most common informal abbreviations built in, it was either added in Jaws 14 or 15, I can't remember. I still have an old copy of 13 and they aren't there.
Some random examples of weird spelling/grammar things i've seen. Some people only capitalize the word I if it happens at certain points in a sentence, or only put a period in certain spots but will leave the end of a message with no punctuation at all. For me to do that, I would almost have to learn a new informal rule set, and I don't work that way. So most of my informal messages are mainly the same as my formal ones, the only difference being that formal stuff has better grammar and word choice, and obviously no silly typing mistakes.
A funny story about spelling and grammar and then I'll be done. I'm writing this post in an almost zombified state, and since I'm talking about spelling, I might as well spell check even though I normally don't, so yeah my energy is about spent. Anyway, in seventh grade, we would always take these grammar tests. On Monday, we would receive a packet of thirty words and practice drills. Most of these words were simple, like the difference between their, they're, and there. There were also a lot of just normal words that didn't have multiple spellings, but the big idea in a lot of these drills was to learn basic grammar rules. Well, on Friday we would take a spelling quiz on the words. The teacher would hand out a little story which was about 5 or 6 paragraphs. Thirty words in the story would be crossed out. These thirty words were the words we were supposed to be studying. The teacher would then read the story with the crossed out words filled in. So for example, a sentence might go like this: "Bob and James went outside to play with blank dog." The teacher would then say "Bob and James went outside to play with their dog," and you would have to fill in the correct form of their. And yeah they weren't normally that simple but for me they weren't hard. However, one thing that was difficult for me, was that instead of filling in the words like the other kids, I just wrote them out on the Braille note in a list. So basically all the teacher would get is a list of words with no paragraphs to go with them. That wasn't a problem, except if one of those words had been at the beginning of a sentence, I was still supposed to capitalize it even though I was just writing out a numbered list of words. The teacher actually thought that because I was blind, that I either didn't understand the concept of, or didn't know how to capitalize. She was quite nice about it too. At first I thought she was just trying to be nice to me like everyone else, but then I realized she really didn't know better at the time. So I made sure to capitalize right from then on for those spelling tests.
Okay, I'm much overdue for sleep tonight! Lol