28 May, 2010

internet bulling is really really bad. that is, unless you win!

a rather public facebook slinging match occurred yesterday between an acquaintance of mine and an extremely undignified girl with the emotional range of a teaspoon. as usual i inserted myself and littered the argument, with a fun turn of phrase and pop culture references. it wasn't so much that this girl, lets call her 'chase', was a nasty piece of work and very rude to all involved, she was. but, it was more that she kept ending her sentences with a preposition that really bugged me. moreover, she had no punctuation and kept using the world 'civilised'. i think this was because it has 3 syllables and she thought that the use of it made her seem smart. she then proceeded to leave out vowels and consonants of innocuous words like 'lik'.

i know i am a bit of a grammar snob, but this comes from the fact that, i have terrible grammar and spelling (as wados can attest too). still, i get away with blue murder by RUNNING WORDS THROUGH SPELL CHECK. it really isn't that hard. how do you expect anyone to listen to your argument when you spell like you are in kindergarten? a slow kindergartener at that.

it's not that being unable to spell correctly makes you a bad person. everyone is free to write however they like. but, what someone should tell chase is that when you comment on facebook or send an email full of misspellings and errant apostrophes people judge you; and by people, i mean me. i don't think this is just arrogant snobbery on my part because if you were a bad writer and not great at spelling then (like me) you would check the contents of you comment before sending. also, this is a public space. people of the public read your comments. the real life equivalent is going out wearing a bright pink jumper with an alien on it and then expecting people to take you seriously.

still, this fetishisation of language/spelling does piss me off to no end. it isn't something that should be trendy! mostly because it is simply useful. then again, i would rather be judged by my ability to use the english language than return to the days of yore when the arbitrary measure of a human's worth was how many animals they could kill or their talents with a pastry bag.

i think 'chase' ought to check out a nice little video i have found for her. it outlines some of the mistakes she made. you know, so when she picks a fight with someone next time she will at least be able to say, 'i couldn't care less!' correctly. other snappy phrases are also included in this video so she won't, in the future, speak like a rhesus monkey on speed!

also, i am sure there are many grammatical and general language mistakes in this rant. as such, i would urge you to point them out. it's how i learn. except wados, you have done enough for this post my friend.

1 comment:

Emma said...

Ha ha. I love it. And even before I got to the last bit I was wondering if I should make some corrections.

I'll refrain!!

xoxo

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