One of my pet peeves came up in class recently, so I must use this space to rant. The use of IM speak in everyday life. I don't use it personally, but I can deal with other people using it. The problem I have is with people who don't realize there is a time and place for it. That place is not in a high school term paper, and teachers who allow students to use it are not helping them. When they enter college, using that language won't be acceptable. I come from a school that was lacking in many areas, English among them, but I learned early-on what words were not acceptable for use in papers that were to be graded. In formal essays the words I and you should not be used, and using the word things in my senior English class would leave you with an 90 as the highest grade you could receive. In a similar vein, a single run-on sentence would lead to 20 points being taken off. Two run-ons meant you weren't going to pass on that paper.