I used to not type this properly because I didn't feel it was necessary. I never replaced letters with numbers or used "u" for "you," though. I still capitalized proper nouns. The way I typed was basically useless; I should have just typed this way. It was close enough to this.
I'm good at reading that form of (dare I call it) English.
One of my teachers in elementary school said that we're supposed to use the word if a number is the first word in a sentence or is ten or less.

Yes, that is roughly the rule of thumb, though I believe round numbers like hundred should usually be typed out as well.

That sounds reasonable.

It also depends on context. If, for example, you're talking about degrees Fahrenheit, or a car's speed in miles per hour, it generally is acceptable to type out the number in, well, numbers.

I think it's also acceptable in math story problems.

Yes, I think it is. Basically, if it's science-related (math and similar included), it's permitted, I think.

Ah, the good ol' days of chat speak. I remember when I first started going to online forums all those years ago, it was considered 'cool' to use chat speak and 1337. I would have a hell time trying to understand what the F they're talking about. Even tried learning and using them myself since everyone uses it. Never could get the hang of it except the very basics, and in the end simply got fed up with it all and went back to typing out every letter in a word.

Hey Antagonist.

Never been fond of it myself, but when you ran a small charity in Gaia's chatterbox around 07, you were bound to pick it up. XD

@Antagonist: Haha! I remember that too! I never spoke in chatspeak...not even when I joined Gaia when I was twelve! Don't get me wrong, I was still a n00bish 12 year old, but spelt out my n00besqueness in full words :D I remember one of my friends at the time called me a geek and laughed at me for writing properly o.O

Hahaha the Chatterbox is hell! I don't know how you're able to host a charity there...wouldn't it all be just 'gimme gimme gimme' in there? At least, that's what happened in the majority of the more giving threads there...along with the gazillion 'bump's...

@Suspense: lmao, I've had people asking me why I spell all the words out as well. And in one thread there was a bit of an argument between the two sides in which both sides call the other side idiots; the ones who spell the words properly saying that the ones who don't lack proper education and all that, while the ones that do use chat speak defend it by saying it's more time-saving.

I used to love the cheap joke threads in the Chatterbox.

Antagonist: To a large degree, yes, though I actually managed (gasp) to have some conversations there as well. XD

Me too...though they're fleeting at best, since they disappear amongst the bumps all too quickly. Gaia doesn't have live update either so sometimes between my post and theirs, there's about three pages worth of other posts. I did join in on some of those bump threads though, I recall bumping 2000 times for an Angelic Bow one time. Totally worth it even though it took me two days of bumping.

@Antagonist: Hehe, it didn't help that I went to a...bad school as well xP It was extra cool to be/appear dumb so by typing out words fully, I was a genius apparently
Haha! I remember those types of arguments between people xP It was actually Gaia that made me even more insistent on not using chatspeak! You were made to feel like an idiot by some people if you wrote "you" as "u" and that kind of thing :/

Lol, it doesn't take THAT much extra time to write words properly!

No, usually it doesn't, and for most words where it does take a lot of extra time, there tend to be official abbreviations.

Wow. o.O;;
I don't recall if there's such a trend going on in the schools back when I was there in the states, or if there was, I was oblivious to it. xDD;;;
lol Yeah, there were guilds and all that dedicated to 'eradicating' the people who use chat speak and stuff. xD; But those who use it will still use it regardless of what insults they hurl at them. :P
There's also guilds that hurl insults at people who are 'weeaboos'....though most of them are idiots who don't know the difference between Japanese and Chinese and just yell at whoever uses 'those blocky letters'. >_>

Indeed it doesn't, but to each their own I suppose. XDD

The Chatterbox does move impossibly fast. LOL.

Finished my shopping!

The chatterbox does move fast, yes.

Ah, nice, Amane.

Yeah, I was so surprised at first when I first came to Menewsha and the posts didn't fly past me in blurs!

Mene and Gaia are polar opposites in terms of post activity.

Not always, though. In Gaia, things go fast... IF your thread is popular.

Otherwise, it's creepingly slow. Slower than Mene's moderate-speed threads.

@Silenia: Exactly! Although I understand it more with texting etc, especially if you have a world limit type thing on texts xP

@Antagonist: Yup! Like I says though, it was a really bad school xD
I'm in the UK xP not that that makes much of a difference xD but most of the smarter kids in my school didn't tend to hang around the ones following that "trend" so were only a little effected by it.
What are weeaboos? O:

Yup! Really, I don't mind when people shorten words when talking to me, as long as it's not the ridiculous kind of chatspeak...like, replacing lett3rs with numbers and stuff D<

Bye, you guys! I have to go out with family.

See you later, then, Amane?

Shakey: I can somewhat understand it if it's actually shorter. Randomly adding or forgetting capitals or changing a single letter for a single number is not actually shorter, though.

@Silenia: Oh, yeah. My threads were crawling along at a moderate pace, though the less popular ones would disappear in just one or two days, buried under a million other threads.

Suspense: Hmm, to my understanding, weeaboos are people who like to use Japanese words without fully understanding them? That's the impression I got.

@Amane: See you later Amane!