Originally Posted by
The One Who
In my (very limited) experience, those who are dyslexic cannot use text speak. They strive to use normal English since mixing the text shorthand and proper grammar ends up causing more confusion. That could just be the few people with dyslexia whom I know.
I haven't encountered dyslexia in real life except for media stuff, actually, so I couldn't say - and thanks for the input, shadow-light! - but my problem with it is this:
There is text speak, and there is text speak. When someone puts "2" instead of "to" or similar things, that's one thing. But what about, say, "tonite" instead of "tonight"? I don't rule out the possibility of someone truly not knowing better. So what looks like text speak may be someone spelling phonetically - and it's so difficult to judge for sure!
My geeky self would like to add that English is really not a nice language for people with spelling trouble. It's not a phonetic language at all, so there's a lot of room for mistakes (Why "receive", not "recieve", huh? What's the P doing in "receipt"? And why does "eight" have so many letters when you only pronounce three? I'll stop now.) - still, that doesn't mean that disregarding grammar and spelling intentionally makes communication easier at all. And that's what language is usually good for, after all.