Pet Peeve: ICTL

My Pet Peeve:

ppl who use ictl

Explanation: It's official. I'm giving it a name. I officially proclaim it to be ICTL: "I Can't Type Language." As a frequent user of instant-messaging tools, I have grown to despise this. I know, ICTL is quite popular with text message senders, and I don't condone their use of it, but at least they have the excuse of dealing with a horrific text entry interface. Instant messagers have no such excuse. Their only excuse is that they can't type on a standard keyboard.

I just love having exchanges like this online:

Jeremy: Hey do you have a minute?
Coworker: brb
...
Coworker: ok
Jeremy: We're going to have to report our status on this project at the meeting this afternoon. Do you think you can put together your half of it, and then we'll just each present separately?
Coworker: sure
Jeremy: Cool. Thanks!
Coworker: np
Jeremy: See you at 1:00.
Coworker: ok

I typed about 210 characters. My coworker typed 13. I typed 10 punctuation marks. My coworker typed 0. I typed 6 capitalized letters. My coworker typed zero.

This is even worse when I get outside of my industry. Every time I'm playing poker online and somebody types "nh" for "Nice hand" or "gg" for "Good game," I just want to strangle them. TYPE IT OUT, PEOPLE! Jeez. It's not that hard.