Twit's and Twitterz

I’ll be honest, pro athletes, outside of their incredible talent at the games in which they play, impress me very little. Sure, there are some exceptions to the rule – Ken Dryden, Magic Johnson, and Derek Jeter – to name a few. But by and large, when athletes try to transition into day to day life, they seem to be very inadequate at it. I am impressed by smarts and these just aren’t very intelligent people.* Nowhere is this more evident than twitter. Oh the sweet access of social media.

*One just needs to watch any Sportsnet Oilers’ game and listen to Louie DeBrusk do colour with Nick Kypreos as the intermission panellist.

Take the Jay Cutler situation from a few weeks ago. I’ll defer on the whole should he or should he not have come back into the game after spraining his MCL. Instead, I want to look at a few tweets from NFL players that became public knowledge.

“FOX HAVENT SHOWED ANY TRAINERS LOOK AT CUTLER,UMMM” – Derrick Brooks

“Folks i never question a players injury but i do question a players heart. Truth” – Deion Sanders

“If I’m on Chicago team jay cutler has to wait till me and the team shower get dressed and leave before he comes in the locker room! #FACT” – Darnell Dockett

“I never questioned Cutler injury! But I know in a NFC championship game and I’m the QB? I’m gonna deal with the pain or whatever to win!” – Darnell Docket
Sweet Jesus, what a mess.

First of all, God bless my grammar teachers. They obviously had a much more difficult challenge than I ever imagined. Second of all, are these guys serious? Like I know it’s cool to be hip by saying “boi” and “u” in place of conventional words, but I think these guys are literally trying their hardest to make a sensible English sentence.

Derrick Brooks has apparently never conjugated a verb. Not to mention whoever ends their sentences, oral or written, with “UMMM” strikes me as someone less complex than a Black Eyed Peas song.

Deion Sanders thinks all words ending in “s” must be spelled like his last name. And as far as I know, blurting one-word declaratives only validates he’s an idiot, not that his statement is correct. Imagine how smart I would sound if I wrote like this:

The Maple Leafs suck. AWESOME. Brian Burke is a failure of a hockey executive. EXCELLENT. Damien Cox is an ignoramus. ABSOLUTELY.

It sounds like a Ninja Turtles episode. COWABUNGA, Prime Time.

But by far the worst is Darnell Dockett, he of the Arizona team. Double Ds tries to string together two thoughts that just make my head hurt. Like Deion, he’s never heard of an apostrophe, although Dockett just ignores the possessive altogether. Also like Deion, he spouts some insane declarative, “FACT”, as if it means anything.

Now I know what Dockett is ultimately trying to say. But are you kidding me? This is a guy who supposedly was academically eligible while at Florida State University. And it’s not like he was an engineering or physics major where he never had to write a paper. Did anyone give this guy a tutor? More likely some loose Seminole groupie coughed out a three page report on Freud after Dockett took her home from a frat party.

Ugh, presumably NFL players should be smarter than most professional athletes. Unlike the MLB and NHL, most of these guys have taken at least three years of college. But look at these sentences again. Is this really supposed to be a reflection of the regular 4-year undergraduate in an American university? Maybe Waiting For Superman has a point.

A quick search of Dockett’s twitter exploits show this isn’t an isolated incident. I present the following tweets from the first page of his twitter account:

“Aye fellas would yall Perfer a girl with a Nice body or cute face and why!”

“Yooooooo so this gucci mane tatto is real!! I thought it was a fake! Woooooooooooow!”

“Ok fellas if ur girl have to have one these witch would it be Thighs, BUTT, BOOBS, HIPS, EYES, LIPS, FEET or SWAGG! And why”

“This is funny as hell! I'm getting my old changed and I'm entertained cuz these responses have me LOL!”

I rest my case.

Maybe I’m just a grammar nerd but this is infuriating. Can twitter create a Wonderlic Test* so that idiots like Dockett are prohibited from posting? This may actually make me want to join twitter. Cull the herd of meatheads before letting the rest of the cows out of the pen. I also feel this is how a democracy should work; make voters prove they’re actually aware of what’s going on before they cast a vote. But I digress.

*Something like spot 3 errors in the following sentence: “its cold out side and me and my brother’s our boosting are carz.”

I’ll write my conclusion in twitterese:

All athleetee’s r well @ sports. But only sum can right good. There 4, only sum shuld use twittr. ROFL. Sew plz boiz n girlz, b carefull what u reed. Dont pic up bad habit’s. If ppl right like this when I get old, I will loose all hope 4 human ity. : ) LOL :-