Text talk: the death of our language?

I had a realization early this morning in my first class of the day. I was already not in the best of moods because I had experienced a first in my life that morning.. never before had I had a parking spot been stolen from me, but today it happened twice. If I thought I had road rage before, it was nothing compared to this. I was late, it was raining, and I had to pee. Just overall not happy. But as I sit there and listen to a fellow classmates give his two cents about our assigned reading, I started counting how many times he said the word "like". Now, I have noticed that he does that a lot before, and I have even pointed it out to him, but it made me take notice of how many other people in the class say either the same word, or other filler words just entirely too often in their conversations. Now, I am sure I am guilty of this as well.. I'm not claiming to be the most eloquent speaker (I am Southern after all), but it just really stood out to me today and from then on, I couldn't help but to pay attention to the way everyone else spoke for the rest of the day. And I am horrified as to what our language has turned into. Back whenever texting first started catching on, I still took the time to spell out all my words. I don't like shorthand and abbreviations, no matter how much time they save. Why can we not take the time to appreciate what we are writing or speaking? Just appreciate our language for what it is meant to be? But no, we're always have to rush through everything. The biggest turn-off to me? Grammar and spelling. Blame it on being a yearbook editor for three years or just an avid lover of literature and poetry, but I believe there is a certain amount of respect that should be places on words and language, and if you and I can't agree on that, well then I have nothing more to say to you. Or more likely to be the case, there is nothing more that I wish to hear from you.

I believe Robin Williams pointed it out best in his quotes from the movie, "Dead Poets Society". I love this man.