Mispellings

I had no idea just how influenced I am by proper spelling and grammar. It turns out I’m more upset by typos than I thought.  However, it wholly depends on the format.

If it’s a text, I expect bad spelling. Small keyboards, touch-screens, auto-correct… When I get a text that says, “I garfled your Mothra, meat szygne at the cuxrths” I don’t fear that I’ve received a text from the Great Old Ones, I don’t rage about bad spelling, I just remember that I’ve sent plenty of those kinds of texts too. I’ll probably just text you back, “Whst tnhe heeeell wws tht text supooposed to mesan?”

If it’s a comment on-line, I forgive it. Same rules apply, many people are using their phones to respond. Touch screens, small keyboards… I can’t get too upset. But, I can insist that I’m able to understand the comment or you must delete it and try again. If I can’t decipher what you meant, then what is the point of having it online? Get rid of it.

I read a lot of amateur blogs, there are many typos. I tolerate it or at the very least, I get over it. The amateurs are passionate about something but they aren’t the world’s greatest typists. They get excited, type fast and hit “Post” before hitting “Spellcheck”. It’s a mistake but we’re just amateurs, I’m alright with it. I got a bit huffy with one person’s blog. I was just about to give up on reading it when I discovered English wasn’t their first language. Oops, my fault… I mean, if I had to write a blog post in French you’d see a lot more than a few errors.

But then there are the professional bloggers. People who write for a living. I hold these people to a much higher standard. When you make your living being a wordsmith, you’d better know the difference between “your” and “you’re”. I can totally overlook a stray word that snuck past spellcheck by masquerading as a different word. Typos happen and if you’re on a deadline, you rely on spellcheck. “On” looks alright to the spellcheck even though you really meant “in”. But when you misuse “it’s” and “its”… I have to slap your knuckles with a steel ruler. Also, have a proofreader. I’ve been guilty of editing my thoughts and restructuring sentences. When you read your own work you read right past those errors when you read your own work…

Somewhere in between the amateur bloggers and the professional writers are the small businesses. When I go to your website and I see typos, I get worried about your services. Yes, you may just be a plumber or you may just be a party DJ, neither job requires proper diction… But if you couldn’t be bothered to check your work while advertising, how can I be sure you’re worth the money I’m looking to spend. Small, local businesses can afford one, possibly two errors if I’m feeling generous. If I see multiple errors on your website, I take my business elsewhere.

Anything that invokes an air of authority must be absolutely correct. When I read physics papers and medical journals, I don’t see any mistakes. I think this is because they know that if I spot a glaring typo, it will damage the impact of their paper. They take the time to check their work because it is important to them. A text; not so much. When someone asks me to take part on an “official survey” and the question has a typo in it, just how “official” am I expected to believe this thing is? Here at work we have an automated ticketing system. When a problem comes up at a remote site, it gathers data from several spreadsheets and spits it out in a form letter. One of the entries is “Drivining Directions”. It’s been there for four years…

And finally, we get the mix of amateur and authority (and the spark that set off this “misspelling” fire). Nothing screams “dumbass” more than a website claiming to be the encyclopedia of all musical knowledge and referring to “Jimmy Hendricks”… If you don’t know what’s wrong with that, you’re probably not a “music” person and that’s okay. I probably wouldn’t even correct you if we were writing back and forth and you made that mistake. But if you’re a music person, even just a casual fan, you’re probably just coming back into orbit after realizing they got BOTH names wrong…  If you’re running a website that (even just humorously) claims to be the final judge of all music and you can’t spell the name of one of the elder gods of guitar… Wow… just wow.