Sunday, December 14, 2008

It just hurts me...

You all know how I am about spelling and grammar and typos.

Really, a single typo is generally fine, unless it's something that should have been thoroughly edited before going out.

Such as this:

Vanity Plates: Creepiness in 8 Characters or Less - I believe in a thing called SPELLING

Honestly.  It's one word.  On your license plate.  Make sure it's spelled right!  Or did you forget the old "I before E except after C..." bit?

*curls in a ball and whimpers for a bit*

Okay.  I think I've recovered.

This leads me to something I've been thinking about.  Why does this bother me so much?  I suppose it's because so many people don't even realize how unintelligent they look when they have constant spelling errors, poor sentence structure, or the wrong homonym (their, they're, there).  So, like I said, one typo is generally no big deal.  I suppose I draw the line between something that is clearly an honest mistake and something that just makes you look stupid.  It's not a bright line; if I know your writing and you rarely have errors, I'll shrug off the occasional mistake.  We all do it.  I actually edit every blog post to avoid being hypocritical by having errors of my own, but I do make them.  I've even caught myself doing the things I hate the most, like its vs. it's, or where and wear.  I laugh, then fix it.

The reason I hate when people actually cross the line and make themselves look stupid is because they could very well be highly intelligent and all the mistakes are hiding that fact.  With the internet allowing anyone and everyone a venue for proudly displaying their poor spelling and misplaced apostrophes, more and more people are looking dumber and dumber when in actuality they're not dumb at all.  So why do I care if someone else makes themselves look stupid?  Well, it's because they don't seem to care.  They don't seem to realize what it looks like to other people to have glaring errors in everything they ever write out.  Then they get angry and call you a "grammar Nazi" when you really just want to help them.  It's especially hard when the underlying thought process behind what they just wrote clearly shows that they are rather intelligent, and they're getting angry because you just want them to realize that their intelligence would come across much more clearly if they took a little time to check for errors.  Or took a little time to learn what is and is not correct, such as with commonly mixed-up homonyms.

So, there you have it.  For all my dear bloggy-friends, I hope this post sufficiently demonstrated that any typos you may make fall in the category of forgivable, honest mistakes.  I probably wouldn't read your blogs otherwise, it would be too hard.

In other news, I've discovered that just about every Christmas album has a version of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" and "Silent Night" on it.  It gets a little repetitive.

Well, I've been awake for two hours and I am still in my pajamas.  I'm off to remedy that, then wait for my new bed!  =)
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13 comments:

Unknown said...

Permission requested to copy and reprint this ENTIRE rant on my own blog.

Here's a great one for you...I belong to a bunch of freelance writer job market sites. Imagine how many times you would cringe reading job descriptions for writers where there are typos. For example there was a posting 2 days ago for a proofreader and I kid you not they spelled grammar gramar and isn't isnt. I cringed & applied for the job by editing the job description.

Guess they didn't really want a proofreader because I didn't get the job.

Spelling, grammar & punctuation are way underrated these days. I write all my posts in Word first & copy/paste.

OK, off to spellcheck this comment now lol

pastrywitch said...

One of the most unforgettable job applications I ever read was from a teaching assistant. She listed her greatest accomplishment as "raising my too sons". Hopefully she wasn't teaching grammar and spelling....

Bridgete said...

Jenn - feel free, as long as you credit me! =)

In the days when you couldn't get a browser with a spell check, I used to write in Word and copy/paste too. The browsers haven't adopted a grammar check yet, but Word's little green lines don't pop up on me very often anyway. Except when I'm taking notes in class...lots of sentence fragments. lol.

Both of you - those examples are painful indeed!

disabled account said...

hahahahaha! a-men to THAT! i know i make my fair share too, but i also try to catch most of them. they slip by me a lot when i'm tired though. while i don't think of you as the grammar or spelling nazi, i do think of you quite a bit when i am searching for or noticing them...perhaps because i get why they bother you because i feel the same way and i also don't want to appear unintelligent or apathetic. i have a friend at work who plays the point out the spelling error game with me a lot because she's cut from the same cloth. we find mistakes and send them to each other to see how quickly we can find them...we're such dorks ~ yah!

that license plate was painful.

disabled account said...

oh! my favorites are alot instead of a lot and the ever so popular irregardless and conversate...they're not even words!

pastrywitch said...

Convo is worse than conversate!

Bridgete said...

You girls are funny. Here's a " fun" one I just found in this file I'm looking at. Its'. What is that? *shakes head*

disabled account said...

heehee..."where are you at?"

did i make anyone cringe just then? lol!

Bridgete said...

Yes, Ginger, you did indeed.

HorribleLicensePlates said...

Yes! Thanks for the link love! You would think they could get it RIGHT if it was going to be on their car for an entire year.

Unknown said...

ARGH - convo is one I have used but only because it is used in Etsy all the time it does drive me crazy though...my BIGGEST pet peeve words are

preggers
preggo
nother (that's another people)
possum (there is an o in there)
hubby (although I've been known to use this one too, I just smack myself around later)

And yeah, people who use to, too, two / there, their, they're wrong just spin me into another universe. I took the there, their, they're test on facebook -- 100% thank you very much. lol

Unknown said...

Where nother really drives me crazy is when people say 'a whole nother'. Is it so difficult to say 'another whole'?

Bridgete said...

I just love how we've had an entire conversation (not a convo) about this. =)