I’m wary of complaining about poor spelling and poor grammar in public forums, because I know that I can’t be aware of the mistakes that I unconsciously make, particularly if no one is pointing them out to me. The absent apostrophe in ‘its’ – for example - is something that always makes me think twice, and employs a rule that I’m never sure I’ve fully understood.
That said, I’m frequently wincing at regular communication gaffes that I come across on a daily basis. At work there are folk who are far more capable at performing our job than I who cannot get a grasp of some words: since vs. sense, affect vs. effect, and your, your, & you’re. I work with one person who has twice written in chat that he’s a gluten for punishment, and I am dying to know whether this is an intentional mistake. (It’s not, but it is brilliant.)
In online forums, though, the mistake that causes me to go flat-out blind is the constant misspelling of lose vs. loose. I don’t know why this drives me bonkers, but I have a hard time moving on when I see it.
So here, in the strip, is a lament that I’m an old man who is complaining about having to tourettically remember my own past mistakes and misunderstandings – for years I thought the expression was ‘harbringer of doom’ – while we now have a U.S. President who celebrates illiteracy of every kind, as well as the destruction of education throughout every institution.
The unhelpful response is for me to loose my elitisms, i.e., there’s a voice in my head that is telling me to stop harping on this, that it’s coming from a position of snobby privilege to have such standards. This is, of course, a bunch of crap, and is why the advice is coming from Squid Man (the voice of undeserved authority) and not the Eno head in Art & Guy (the voice of inscrutable, but wise, inspiration). There is a difference between “honoring the ‘proscriptive vs. descriptive’ acceptance in how language use is viewed” and simply allowing someone to sloppily mistake ‘loose’ when they mean ‘lose,’ and I don’t have to be a snob to stand up for that. Similarly, it's not snobbish to be sad that we as a culture no longer seem to care. (Though perhaps it is a sign of age.)
I’m wary of complaining about poor spelling and poor grammar in public forums, because I know that I can’t be aware of the mistakes that I unconsciously make, particularly if no one is pointing them out to me. The absent apostrophe in ‘its’ – for example - is something that always makes me think twice, and employs a rule that I’m never sure I’ve fully understood.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I’m frequently wincing at regular communication gaffes that I come across on a daily basis. At work there are folk who are far more capable at performing our job than I who cannot get a grasp of some words: since vs. sense, affect vs. effect, and your, your, & you’re. I work with one person who has twice written in chat that he’s a gluten for punishment, and I am dying to know whether this is an intentional mistake. (It’s not, but it is brilliant.)
In online forums, though, the mistake that causes me to go flat-out blind is the constant misspelling of lose vs. loose. I don’t know why this drives me bonkers, but I have a hard time moving on when I see it.
So here, in the strip, is a lament that I’m an old man who is complaining about having to tourettically remember my own past mistakes and misunderstandings – for years I thought the expression was ‘harbringer of doom’ – while we now have a U.S. President who celebrates illiteracy of every kind, as well as the destruction of education throughout every institution.
The unhelpful response is for me to loose my elitisms, i.e., there’s a voice in my head that is telling me to stop harping on this, that it’s coming from a position of snobby privilege to have such standards. This is, of course, a bunch of crap, and is why the advice is coming from Squid Man (the voice of undeserved authority) and not the Eno head in Art & Guy (the voice of inscrutable, but wise, inspiration). There is a difference between “honoring the ‘proscriptive vs. descriptive’ acceptance in how language use is viewed” and simply allowing someone to sloppily mistake ‘loose’ when they mean ‘lose,’ and I don’t have to be a snob to stand up for that. Similarly, it's not snobbish to be sad that we as a culture no longer seem to care. (Though perhaps it is a sign of age.)