Perhaps I am old fashioned, but it is painful to me to try to decifer some of these questions and answers, because the spelling and word usage is so bad. Am I alone in thisor are there more people out there that believe that the language should be preserved?

I too have problems deciphering what people are trying to communicate because their spelling and word usage are so bad. As a retired English teacher, I deplore the situation. If only writers and speakers would suit their language and grammar to their audience and situation. Acronyms,abbreviations and emoticons belong in text messages. More traditional formal usage and grammar belong in what I would call public communications. This site's questions and answers would be one example.

Clear communication is not old fashioned, it is a necessity.

I agree with you completely, sometimes I have had to Google a lot of these abbreviations. I'm not a complete grammar freak, but I do wish more people (especially younger ones) would formally answer questions.

I think that one of the reasons why we are seeing such bad grammar and spelling is due to the popularity of IM and texting. Pop culture is allowing these bastardized versions of the English language to be socially acceptable. Henry Higgins would have a heart attack if he heard young people speaking today.

Oh, by the way, my biggest pet peeve is when people use an acronym and identify the last letter of said acronym. For example, ATM Machine or PIN Number.

lol, i dunno but, liek, i totally agree wit u. :P

Just kidding.
When people (I say this asif I am not one of them...) type like this:
lol, u, ya, etc. It's basically the shortened version.
When your talking via internet it's acceptable, but asking questions on yahoo, or even typing anything on the computer (besides msn, etc) is just lazy :P
(or the person might be out of time?)
It sometimes gets on my nerve when people say:
I dunno wat to do, this guy @ my skool asked me out but im not alowed 2 go out wiff him. wat shuld I do?
When, seriously, it's not that hard to ACTUALLY type it.

Does it annoy you when people talk like this?:
So I wEnT tO tHe PaRtY yEsTeRdAy...

^^^ bugs me ^^^

Hey, I'm not perfect. This site doesn't require formal English, and I've been known to leave a few sentence fragments.

But, when you get people talking in gibberish or the excessive use of abrreviations (how hard is it to spell out "you?") or they're unable to use capitals, I get a bit irritated.

I think I've broken several grammar rules in this post alone, but it's perfectly understandable.

(You have a mispelling in your question, by the way.)

I fully believe that the English language should be used properly. Along with proper punctuation. If I can't read and understand a question, I just pass it by. I have seen some real no brainers out there who use "cell text" instead of English.

I'm with you on this one.