The sky is falling: AOL-speak

A little part of me dies every time I read a story like this.

The top story on Digg as of now is entitled "AOL has destroyed the English langauge with chat speech." Needless to say, it's preposterous that AOL could be blamed for people using--gasp--abbreviations. The comments on Digg are actually more interesting to me than the actual story. I particularly love the comment (referring back to the original link poster's description) that "How sad." is not a complete sentence. I also love the comment that "anyone who talks like that in AIM chat probably sounds just as stupid in real life. most people can still speak and type coherantly." [Sic.] Well, I type in all lower-case, punctuate less, and use abbreviations in e-communication to people I know well enough--and so do plenty of the most successful professors, doctors, and lawyers I know. Do they sound stupid in real life? I think not.