Aside

How to Tell a Blogger They Made a Grammar Mistake

You're doing it wrong!

I make mistakes typing. I’d take a bet you do too.

In fact, we all make mistakes when we write. It’s a fact of life. Everyone doesn’t have a proofer checking things behind them to make everything they write perfect.

So when you see a blog post (or a tweet, or a Facebook post or whatever) with a grammar mistake, don’t be an asshole and publicly post to the author “UR DOIN IT WRONG.

That just makes the author feel bad and makes you look like an ass-hat.

Take the ten seconds it takes to send a private message to the author with the mistake. Chances are the author will fix it as soon as he or she can, and they won’t feel like they’ve been put in the stockades for a misplaced keystroke.

And then the internet will be nicer, if only for the briefest of moments.

 

4 Responses to How to Tell a Blogger They Made a Grammar Mistake

  1. yancyscot October 8, 2012 at 8:20 am #

    Hope I wasn’t knucklehead who did this ;-0

    • JayDolan October 8, 2012 at 10:45 am #

      @yancyscot You’re the knucklehead who didn’t use a period.

      • yancyscot October 8, 2012 at 10:54 am #

        @JayDolan What are you saying? Emoticons don’t count as punctuation marks? O.M.G. !   :-) .

  2. cavaticat October 8, 2012 at 11:22 am #

    Misplaced keystrokes lead to typos, not to grammatical errors. “Yuor face is stupid” is a typo and not something I’d correct; “You’re face is stupid” is a cringeworthy, blatant grammatical error.
     
    I appreciate not wanting to be called out in public, but I’m also pretty tired of the litany of excuses: “I hadn’t had my coffee yet/that’s what I get for writing on a Monday/I only slept two hours/my dog ate my Phonics.” If you don’t know the difference between “lay” and “lie” or a comma and a semicolon, just cop to it. Then at least we pedantic proofreaders can help fill in the gap instead of making a correction you don’t understand.