Guest  +  49248 Wed, 06 Oct 04 10:52 PM When is the proper time to use tonite or is it proper at all to use? I have seen it a lot recently and was wondering which type of situation calls for it. Guest

	Mister Micawber  +  49253 Wed, 06 Oct 04 11:53 PM 'Tonite' is the lazy man's way of spelling 'tonight'. No situation calls for it. Thank goodness it is not yet acceptable orthography, but will probably eventually be included in the dictionary as an alternate spelling, much to the purist's chagrin. Mister Micawber Joined on Wed, Aug 4 2004 Yokohama Veteran Member 30,753 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-- that's all.' Spelling

	Keyser_Soze  +  389481 Sun, 08 Jul 07 03:35 PM English is (almost) a second language for me, but I've been teaching the thing for eleven years now, and this 'Internet spelling' of words and phrases is slowly but surely becoming an epidemic. Apart from (relatively simple) mis-spellings like 'tonite' or 'nite', there have been numerous sightings of the use of 'there' as a substitute for the possessive 'their', and also of the possessive 'your' instead of the contracted verb form 'you're'. In sentences llike this: Your right to make them carry there backpacks the rest of the way. I haven't determined the origin of this practice, at first I thought it was simply an americanism, limited to teen web surfers, but I'm beginning to see it in other varieties of English, and in print, and the average age of the users seems to be going up, and up, and up. (Could be the same people growing, though...) Keyser_Soze Joined on Sun, Jul 8 2007 Athens, Greece New Member 13 Some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug. Verbs, Spelling, Possessives

	Brunate  +  389498 Sun, 08 Jul 07 04:19 PM I agree with what everyone else has said.  I just cannot bear to see the English language being destroyed, and when I see people starting to use texting (eg, u = you etc) when they don't need to, I find it abhorent in every way.  Do we live in a world where there is no time to write our beautiful language beautifully any more?  Don't ever write TONITE - or I'll haunt you forever. ha ha. Brunate Joined on Sat, Jun 30 2007 Ilkley Junior Member 63

	Eimai_Anglos  +  390534 Tue, 10 Jul 07 10:10 PM Mister McCawber wrote: "but will probably eventually be included in the dictionary as an alternate spelling.." What the Dickens? Hee hee, it's not often I get to correct your English! That should be "alternative" not "alternate". Eimai_Anglos Joined on Thu, Jun 23 2005 Regular Member 509 Martin - native English speaker and technical author. Spelling