Wankers and Misspellings

The Probablist wrote a list of 10 most misspelled words in blogs, and I couldn't be happier with the level of attention his article has gotten. Digg.com blew it up and it got lots of traffic. Props to him.

I am chastised every time I try to correct someone's misspelling or grammatical errors, and the culprit shines a light of disdain on me that somehow paints me the color of "asshole" every time. It's English, folks, and the American kind. It's the type we were taught in elementary school (though you weren't listening while the teacher went on and on about comparative/superlative adjectives and run-on sentences). I learned in the Army that paying attention is key to survival, and it couldn't be more important when applied to writing in the public domain. I haven't told Scott yet that "noone" should have a space between the o's, and Justin should really study his usage of apostrophes. I can't really harp on them though, and this is why: I know several people who hold graduate degrees and still cannot form a proper cover letter. They cannot document their work with proper punctuation and spelling, and some cannot even communicate well verbally.

I must point now to an article I came across several years ago (can't believe I can still find it) titled "How to Write Like a Wanker." The article points out several shortcomings of speech on the Internet, albeit mostly by teenagers (my definition of "teenagers" here certainly includes wankers in their early twenties), but informative and entertaining nonetheless. It includes my favorite, "pluralize with apostrophes." We could all use a little brush-up on the grammar, spelling, and content of what we write, and also a lesson on how our writing can impact our own image and credibility. I simply refuse to patronize any establishment with misspellings, backwards letters, or simple oversights in their marquees, menus, or websites. It makes no sense to put value in someone's work when they can't bother to get something that simple correct.

And yes, I do admit that I am not perfect. I've tried my best to make this site look as clean as possible and keep the ads to a minimum. I do my best to spell everything correctly and form complete sentences, and for the most part I succeed. Let that be my gift to the Internet, and may you all go spread the correctly-spelled word to others who need it.