Writing without typos is totally outdated

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Will everyone please shut up about the typos on blogs? Show me someone who is blogging every day and also complains about someone’s typos. Just try. See? You can’t. Because anyone who is trying to come up with fresh ideas, and convey them in an intelligent, organized way, on a daily basis, has way too many things on their plate to complain about other peoples’ typos.

There is a new economy for writing. The focus has shifted toward taking risks with conversation and ideas, and away from hierarchical input (the editorial process) and perfection.

As the world of content and writing shifts, the spelling tyrants will be left behind. Here are five reasons why complaining about typos is totally stupid and outdated.

1. Spellchecker isn’t perfect.
Everyone knows that Spellchecker misses some words. And everyone knows that sometimes we think we are making a stylistic choice when we have actually made a grammar error.

And anyway, it’s nearly impossible for us to catch the errors that Spellchecker misses. If it were tenable to proofread one’s own stuff, then there would never have been a copy editor to begin with. And there is research to show that if the first and last letter of a word are correct then our brain adjusts for all the letters in between. (My personal favorite of all Spellchecker problems: form and from. Try it—there are so many cases when both words will get past Spellchecker.)

So don’t bitch to me that I should use Spellchecker.

2. Spelling has nothing to do with intelligence.
Usually the person who is bitching about spelling errors also has to make some comment about how the blogger in question is a moron—but you might want to rethink the idea that a spelling error is a sign of incompetence.

Many people with dyslexia are very smart. Most kids who win spelling bees have many signs of Asperger’s syndrome (see the documentary on this, which I love). This means that many amazing spellers actually have brains that are developing intellectual skills (in this case, spelling skills) at the expense of social skills.

So people who have spelling problems might be super intelligent with great social skills—if you’d just take the time to notice.

3. You don’t have unlimited time, so spend it on ideas, not hyphens.
I am extremely knowledgeable about grammar. I can parse any sentence. I can sign the preposition song in my sleep. So I feel fine telling you that there are great writers who don’t know grammar.

Real grammarians, by the way, have memorized the AP Stylebook. Newspapers and magazines have people who are paid to enforce these rules. There is no way a blogger could hire for this, and few bloggers can justify spending the years it takes to memorize The AP Stylebook. So you could spend your life reading the AP Stylebook, or you could spend your life spouting ideas.

So what if your ideas have hyphens in the wrong places and you turn an adverb into a noun? People can almost always figure out what you’re saying anyway, but they won’t care enough to try without a great idea lurking there to attract their effort. And there’s a reason that people who have amazing ideas get paid twenty times more than people who have amazing grammar: Ideas are worth a lot more to us.

4. Perfectionism is a disease.
If errors bother you a lot, consider that you might be a perfectionist, which is a disorder. Perfectionists are more likely to be depressed than other people because no amount of work seems like enough. They are more likely to be unhappy with their work because delegating is nearly impossible if you are a perfectionist. And they are more likely to have social problems because people mired in details cannot look up and notice the nuances of what matters to other people.

5. Use the comments section for what matters: Intelligent discourse.
The comments section of a blog is a place for people to exchange ideas. The best comments sections, of which I think mine is one, is full of smart, curious people who don’t spend as much time finding perfect answers (are there any?) as finding good questions. The best comments sections are full of people helping each other to sharpen the questions we ask.

So blogging is not an homage to perfectionism but rather an homage to the art of being curious. And while old journalism was hell-bent on being Right and being The Authority, new journalism understands that news is a commodity and opinion-makers are the layer that goes on top of the news to make it resonate. So stop wasting your time in the comments section parsing grammar and start contributing to the discussion.

236 replies
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  1. Mal Watlington
    Mal Watlington says:

    First, let me say that I really enjoy your blog, which I recommend to all my boomer colleagues who are tearing their (remaining) hair out over inter-generational issues in the workplace.

    Regarding blog writing, most of us can get the meaning despite the thumb-grammar . . . unless our minds truly are sent on an unproductive trip by the words.

    As an example, I’ll point to the comment (above) by Blum:

    “You had a typo!

    I can sign the preposition song in my sleep.

    I think you meant 'sing'- jk

    Otherwise I agree with what you say.”

    Glad he clarified it for me. I thought you had learned about prepositions via ASL. Hmmmmm

    Mal

  2. Maria H
    Maria H says:

    I think it is interesting that this post generated so many comments! (I would have thought it would have been for that last post – lol). Clearly people care about the subject no matter what side they are on. I have found it very interesting since writing and editing is a big part of my job and I am a reformed perfectionist. I say reformed because I agree in part with Penelope, being perfect is rarely needed, and thankfully, I have slowly learned that lesson (with age comes wisdom!). So I agree with many people, a few typos or mistakes every once a while is no big deal. I still have a problem with the no typos in a resume – especially since the ones I see are supposed to be from people who want to write for a living! We need to lighten up and I have to remind myself of that daily. And noting things like that in the comments of a blog, especially rudely, is really juvenile. I thought Matt Bingham’s and Casey’s comments were funny and on the money.

  3. Asumi
    Asumi says:

    i agree with your idea “Writing without typos is totally outdated”.
    i especially liked the third reason “You don't have unlimited time, so spend it on ideas, not hyphens.” i totally agree with what you are saying. I came here from Japan, and i used to care about my grammer at first, but i began to think “i have to know the minimum grammer or punctuation to tell people what i want to say, but it’s not the most important thing. I want to take more time thinking about different things, not grammer.” and now, i don’t care about my grammer mistake that much. I’m almost never afraid of making English mistakes now. and I believe im communication with people much better than before.
    Lastly, i read your blog for the first time today, and i really enjoyed reading it. it made me think a lot of things!

  4. Biodun
    Biodun says:

    Good spelling with punctuation reflect one’s commitment to competence.
    I agree with your five points about the typos on blogs, focusing on ideas is the most important!

  5. Kristina Summers
    Kristina Summers says:

    This is so true! I have received comments that refer to my spelling and word choice rather than my ideas…I always want to hit “delete”, even though I know as a good blogger I must respond. I don’t have all day to respond though to that kind of thing so I try to focus more on what you refer to as the Intelligent conversation posts.

    Thanks for the great post!

  6. Nigel Gray Bannish
    Nigel Gray Bannish says:

    Typos are outdated only if you don’t mind readers stumbling and being distracted away from what you’re trying to say. If you want your writing to make the fullest impact, it’s worth making the effort to get it right.

  7. Danny
    Danny says:

    In honor of this topic, I will make my entry without spell check (forgive me). Great point from the perspective of saying spelling is not directly tied to intellegence. I have had trouble with spelling my whole life and Spell check was what allowd me to be taken seriously inthe business world.
    However, as with all areas of business, there are limits. I can easily forgive mistakes when I see that it is something that snuck by spell check. That being said, when I receive an email or read a blog post that is an absolute train reck, I have a tough time taking the author seriously. It only takes a second to hit the spell check and get it up to an acceptable level with minimal errors.
    Being a terrible speller, I love the idea and your point but as you can see from from this post I have just typed, I tend to make alot of typo’s. I think the important part is to know your limits. My spelling sucks and I know this, therefore, to be taken seriously I use spell check and at least give some effort towards accuracy. My advice is to be careful not to post a train reck that makes you sould like an idot.

    Danny

    P.S. I just spell checked the above and see at least 10 errors. I left them for your entertainment. Also, we learn a quick lesson. If we were not discussing this topic, I think it would be fair to not take me seriously after seeing all those errors.

    P.S.S. How’s the foot fungus comming along?

  8. J. Liz
    J. Liz says:

    I don’t give a darn about spelling errors on blogs, especially if they are casual. If you’re using a blog to generate business, that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish entirely.

    I am Generation Y by birth — but honestly, it sucks the big one to be a part of this generation, if Penelope’s generalizations are true. The peers who live in my town are generally lazy and insolent; many are lacking basic reading and math skills, to boot. We can blame the parents, the public schools, the general economic decline of my region, whatever.

    Technology is no excuse, though many enjoy using it to justify why they can’t add or read or write coherent sentences. Let’s not begin accepting illiteracy in tandem with typos. The latter is fine, the former, shameful. We’re already graduating too many illiterate children from American high schools each year.

    Moving on here, I am a professional writer, and some of Penelope’s writing is not good. I never notice the typos — after all, I’m not paid to be her copy editor. I DO notice, however, the far-fetched conclusions and unsupported ideas. There’s a lot of generalizing about generations, too, and while I realize those “GenWhatever” words are big buzz words and compelling capital in a Pay-Per-Click blogosphere, there’s really only so many generalizations you can make about any one group of people.

    Then, there’s this:

    And while old journalism was hell-bent on being Right and being The Authority, new journalism understands that news is a commodity and opinion-makers are the layer that goes on top of the news to make it resonate.

    The newspaper world needs no more inept “opinion-heads disguised as news professionals” than it already has. Why bother with journalism at all, when any incoherent idiot can have his or her own blog musing about marriage and children or Paris Hilton’s toe hair? Instead of disseminating facts, let’s share propaganda and pabulum! Ah, the dumbing-down of America! We’re not content to do it merely at the K-12 level — let’s make it a national pandemic!

    Where do eye sign up? This is nothing short ov a total media revolution! After all, Throbbing Gristle’s erstwhile frontman Genesis P’Orridge didn’t need no stinkin’ spelling rules! And neither do we. We’re all rock-n-roll stars! Now, everyone, quit your day jobs and start throwing out ideas. They pay the billz!

  9. Tiffany
    Tiffany says:

    Hm. This is interesting, because since part of my job is being an editor, I spend a lot of time doing this all day and am meticulous about copyediting all my posts before I post them – and after.

    But it doesn’t really matter to me when I see typos in other people’s posts. What does bug me though, is blatant lack of grammar knowledge that some writers convey. To me, those are different. A misspelled word that slips through spellcheck or occasional mixup of a form/from that you point out is forgivable. But chronic mistakes like when people appear not to know how to use possessives correctly sometimes does more than simply bug me, but perhaps that’s part of what goes with the territory of actually having at least parts of the AP Stylebook memorized.

    That said, I think the freedom of being able to blog without fear of worrying too much about typos in general is a good emphasis. Quality writing should be sought after, but we all make mistakes, and some people definitely need to lighten up about them! So thanks for this.

  10. J. Liz
    J. Liz says:

    Hey, if Eye could make money blogging all ov the teyme, Eye would. If Eye could spell anything any way eye wanted to while blogging to make my money, it would be the greatest thing Eye’d ever do. Eye need a Generation Wheye? career. Eye’d also have a transvestite photo gallery on the blog.

    Final bit of wisdom:

    Sometimes people spell a thing a way. Sometimes they also spell another thing a way that is different than the way other people spell a thing.

  11. thom singer
    thom singer says:

    I am always amazed at the people who seem to take pleasure in finding a typo in my writing. If someone finds an aura of self worth in discovering typos, I suggest they read my blog often, as I write fast, and hope to not make mistakes….but I am not here to be perfect.

    I get emails from people who love to show how superior they are to me. Yep, they win (cuz I did not know it was a spelling contest, so I am not playing the same game).

    I would say that spelling and gramar ARE important, but to be so nuts about it is just silly.

    I would rather convey my ideas to those who care and make a few spelling errors than to be overly self concerned and never share my thoughts at all.

    Penelope…this is a great post. Thanks.

  12. Flying Squirrel
    Flying Squirrel says:

    VERY interesting thread! Sometimes I think the typos are almost on-purpose. That sort of aggressive “I don’t care what you think” attitude. Seems to be a lot more of this type of attitude here lately, or am I imagining things?

  13. Clara Kuo
    Clara Kuo says:

    Penelope, your arguments were very interesting and creative. At the same time, typos and grammar mistakes do make things hard to read. It becomes a matter of credibility rather than nit-picking. Plus, attention to detail is also a huge thing in this web 2.0 world.

  14. thom singer
    thom singer says:

    I would like to chime in again here. To those who are the grammar police…YES, a TON of typos throughout a document is very bad.

    But I do not think this is what Penelope is saying. I think she means the blog post (or other writing) that has the “you” instead of “your” (or other simple mistake that does not get caught by spellcheck) ome time from the author typing very fast.

    Yes, as resume with tons of mistakes will keep you from getting a job. Proof and reproof, have others look at it, etc… Common sense here people.

    But, when you see a mistake somewhere in someones writing that is random… do you jump all over it as if you have discovered a major flaw in this person? (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!) If yes, then you have some serious self grandiose issues that act themselves out through looking for ways to put others down.

    There is a difference between a simple typo and someone being an intellectual runt.

    I believe the point of this post was not about those who write, but instead about those who go nuts-o on people who make minor mistakes from time to time.

    If you see this post as an absolute where she is saying that anyone cann missspelll enything they rite and that itz okey, then youz are the reel fool here.

  15. Brice
    Brice says:

    If blogging is about ideas, then why are so many blogs about useless BS?

    I would like to hereby associate the phrase “word-diharrea” with blogging, because that’s what it is. (Some blogs are very good, but most are junk)

    I like to read your blog because it is entertaining. Weather or not your posts are providing great ideas to ruminate on, I cannot say.

  16. Sheryl Sisk Schelin
    Sheryl Sisk Schelin says:

    Of course it’s possible to blog well, consistently, and without stupid typographical errors. Not only is it possible — it’s essential for professional service firm owners who are blogging for clients. And if you’re looking for one who does blog daily and complains about typos — right here. Some of the blog posts I see from so-called gurus are nigh unto unreadable.

    This is just silly.

  17. Shefaly
    Shefaly says:

    Penelope: I am all for ideas – as are probably most of your readers – but frankly, I was brought up with the belief that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. And I try to live to the difficult standard that defines for me every day, in every thing I do, including my blogging. As, I am sure, do many others here. Unlike your other critics, I leave behind a trail for those who wish to check on my antecedents.

    However I do find it amusing that a post that says typographical errors and their critics are over-rated is followed by a post on why looks matter in a career. They are analogous in a way and that makes both the posts almost contrarian to each other. In the realm of ideas, that would be a difficult thing to explain, defend or indeed, sell.

    Just my tuppence.

  18. Crystal N
    Crystal N says:

    Agreed! Blog comments should be about the content, not whether or not there are typos or grammar problems.

    If someone thinks I am of lesser intelligence because of one or two typos, I probably wouldn’t like that person anyway… Although I always try to be, nobody is perfect.

    Here’s to immperfection!

  19. Jim C
    Jim C says:

    Okay, I’ll concede that typos are unimportant in a blog if you’ll concede that the blog is unimportant and that respect for your readers is unimportant. Careless blogging shows a low esteem of your readers.

    One habit that has become all too common over the past several decades is the practice of disparaging those who do things well in painstaking tasks. “They’re borderline autistic,” or, “They’re obsessive-compulsive.” It makes the slipshod workers feel good, but it shows a heap of disrespect for the people who are capable of being heart surgeons, aerospace engineers, or water-treatment-plant operators. (In the last case, a casual oversight in chlorine levels can give norovirus to 100,000 water users.)

    Ask yourself whom you could better live without: a talking head on a newscast or the guy who fixed your car’s brakes. The one you can’t live without is likely a stickler for detail where people’s lives depend on it.

  20. Erik
    Erik says:

    Thank you for expressing what I’ve often thought! Give us bloggers a break, especially if we’re posting once or twice a day! There is a difference between completely sloppy grammar and spelling versus a few honest mistakes that don’t get picked up by spell check and commas that should or should not have been there.

  21. jon
    jon says:

    >> 2. Spelling has nothing to do with intelligence.

    Eh, sort of. I agree with the essence of your point here, but let’s not forget one of the key principles of marketing:

    Perception is Reality

    Whiles its excusable to have a spelling error or typo every now and again, too much of that does give the perception that you are either unintelligent (even if its not true, perception is what matters) or that you are just not very detail-oriented. Neither is a particularly admirable trait!

    (Note that I almost spelled admirable wrong – admireable – but my FireFox built-in spellchecker caught it!)

  22. Mark W.
    Mark W. says:

    The new journalism. There is an editor-reader gap in news sites according to the Online Journalism Credibility Study released 4/8/08 by the Associated Press Managing Editors group and the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri.
    The AP article on this study can be found at http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080408/D8VTRUTG0.html
    It’s an interesting article. While the editors and readers agreed to the basic principals of journalism their ideas on how it should be implemented differed quite a bit.

  23. Jeff
    Jeff says:

    I can’t take you seriously when you typo in a post about typos, though I can give you props for consistency.

    I think the point is to strive for typo-free copy. But honestly, as a professional copy editor, I’m quite happy to follow slobs like yourself around with the grammar broom.

    Thank you.

  24. Jeremy
    Jeremy says:

    I think one should obviously make an effort to minimize typos, but if the majority of the text in a blog is correct (day after day), then I can probably sleep at night.

    What drives me crazy is the total lack of correct, spelling, capitalization, proper grammar in business email.

    My favorite is something like this (this is a real email that I received from the nursing home that a family member of mine resides in):

    I apologize I ended up being out last week I will talk to our staff educator and let you know by the end of the day thanks Lisa

    Is Lisa thanking herself? I also enjoy the total lack of punctuation.

  25. Anshu
    Anshu says:

    Are you rearry serios? I wood never read your blog poost if it had typos because it would distrack me so much from what you were trying to comunicate.

    Get it?

  26. Sean Davis
    Sean Davis says:

    great article, If I read your post correctly then you are basically stating that its ok to go ahead and make the common gramatical errors that are made by everyone and not to fret over how every little detail looks.

    besides allowing others to see how you write permits people to make suggestions

  27. Nigel
    Nigel says:

    If your home life gets outsourced for the sake of your your job (see posting on 50K per year “home manager”), doesn’t your job deserve the same care and feeding ? Why not hire a proof reader for your blog.

    Typos only detract from the message.

  28. Joe Clark
    Joe Clark says:

    Printing out one's own work makes previously invisible errors more visible.

    And, you know, there's a difference between an actual typo ("hte") and using flatly the wrong word (commonly "loose" for "lose").

  29. National Kato
    National Kato says:

    I started to go through your post statement-by-misguided-statement, with the intention of delivering a point-by-point rebuttal of some of your points, but I ended up with about 30 paragraphs of text.

    I will synthesize:

    You are not cut out to be a writer (at least not a blogger). You’re too thin-skinned, and seem to a be light on the skills and heavy on the excuses.

    Perhaps a career in housewifery is in order. Best of luck, and don’t forget to separate your whites and colors!

  30. Diana Freedman
    Diana Freedman says:

    I actually find typos really amusing. For example, in the past I’ve had to read the New York Times and Wall Street Journal every single day for class. And those few times I’d find a typo, I thought to myself, “HA! I found something that big-shot editors didn’t find!” Just a 0.2 second thought to break up my boredom.

    I agree with you about typos in blogs. If I reread and reread and reread my blog entries for typos and such, I’d never have the time to post anything. Blogs are more like a conversation, and (almost) nobody speaks out loud perfectly.

  31. Mark W.
    Mark W. says:

    I just stumbled across an article in the New York Times (of all places) about writing without typos and grammar is totally outdated today for teenagers. The NYT article is at http://www.nytimes.com/2008
    /04/25/education/25writing.html and the PEW Internet and American Life Project study is at http://pewinternet.org
    /pdfs/PIP_Writing_Report_FINAL3.pdf
    The article and the study speak for themselves. I think whomever is doing the writing has to look at their writing from the audience’s perspective and the medium in which it is being published.

  32. Paula G
    Paula G says:

    I have to agree with you…like Marketing Guru Andrea Lee says — Completion Not Perfection. That being said I do think there is a line. A few typos — definitely forgivable. Ideas and the conversation matters more. Nothing but typos spells really sloppy and in my opinion detracts from your professionalism (that is if you’re blogging for business purposes, if personal, that is up to you!).

  33. Max
    Max says:

    We all make typos now and then, but editing yourself shouldn’t be difficult and too many typos and spelling errors are highly distracting for readers. Poor editing is typically a sign of poor verbal skills in general. Typos also occur more if you were drinking the night or weekend prior. ;-)

  34. Joy-Mari
    Joy-Mari says:

    What fun reading this.

    My thoughts:

    1) It isn’t perfect and that’s why it’s perfectly OK to ask a friend to proofread your writing. Or write it and take a walk. Come back half an hour later and you’ll see obvious mistakes you missed the first time.

    2) Um, it does take a certain kind of intelligence to spell. Usually a fifth-grade one. And is this not what dictionaries are for?

    3) I like this idea of Penelope. But there’s no need to memorize any style guide unless you really like to. We should refer to style guides, not memorize them.

    4) Do we not expect our doctors and teachers and scientists to be excellent at their jobs?

    5) Point taken. It’s rude pointing out someone’s grammar in the comment section, and this is something I’m guilty of. I’ll stop it, I promise.

  35. aimomo
    aimomo says:

    You sound bitter. And maybe I will too:

    I have a difficult time taking a person seriously if this person isn’t going to take the time to proofread what he or she has to say. Type-os happen, yes, but when a person haz a habet uv typin lyk dis den i cant teik em srsly. I really can’t. It’s like saying, “You’re a moran!” And, really, that’s what your post is implying is okay, even if you didn’t start out saying that.

    I appreciate when someone tells me in my own journal, “Oh, you misspelt this,” or, “You have a type-o here,” so I can go and edit it. I take about a half hour to an hour to edit my posts sometimes, and I will go back the next day, and MY blog is just a personal journal. Mixing up “form” and “from” is a pretty big deal. Again, it happens, but you should appreciate when a person tells you you’ve made a mistake, so you can correct it and get your point across properly.

    By the way, diseases and disorders are two different things. Also, it might be easy for you to say, “Oh, get over your perfectionism,” but it’s not so easy to do. I have OCD, which comes with perfectionism, and I can tell you it’s a right pain in the ass for me on my own, never mind with people like you who don’t seem to try to understand another person’s perspective. I don’t know you, and maybe you’re not really like that, but that’s really what you’re saying to me here. I have to fight this everyday, and then you come along like, “Oh, just get over it; you're being stupid,” like it’s my fault in the first place, like I actually WANT to be like this.

  36. Mike
    Mike says:

    1. No spellchecker is not perfect, but hopefully the writer knows what they are trying to say and should catch mistakes.
    2. Correct, spelling has nothing to do with intelligence, but there are a lot of intelligent people that can not communicate. This is just a poor excuse.
    3. Ideas are worthless unless people know what you mean. You said it yourself, MOST people can understand what you mean. What about the others?
    4. Being a slob is a disease also. Again just an attempt at an excuse.
    5. Don’t blog if you don’t want feedback.

  37. Cynthia McCune
    Cynthia McCune says:

    Time to grow up and get with the program. Sure, typos are not an indication of stupidity, but they are an indication of carelessness. And who wants to work with someone who doesn’t pay attention to the details?

    Maybe you can get away with sloppy writing and editing in your field, but you can’t in mine.

  38. im tpyo
    im tpyo says:

    so is ti io cn hv my onw bolg??cool!!1 cos ny frenz rold me dat myt speelng suks,so i shldnt hv a bllg.tho i hv alot of idaes!!relly!thnaks al ot fort he blogpsit!

  39. Sune
    Sune says:

    What utter rubbish.

    What you’re saying is that people with inferior substandard intelligence such as yourself are in the majority. That’s only too true. Even IQ organizations have of late loosened their entrance requirements. Simply put: the median population of the United States is approximately 10% dumber than ten years ago.

    You’re probably one of the reasons this has happened.

    Evolution and Chuck Darwin don’t give a hoot about your blogging needs. They care only about survival of the fittest. And that definitely ain’t you, babe.

  40. Susan
    Susan says:

    My Dear,
    What you do so beautifully and powerfully and viscerally is COMMUNICATE. Yours is a rare gift I am grateful to have chanced upon.

    Thank you.

    Susan

  41. aussiegirl
    aussiegirl says:

    Resumes without typos are definitely important. Recently on “A Current Affair” (Australia) there was a segment on typos plus literacy in schools – which is apparently going down the plug hole here. A few bosses came on and said that when they receive resumes with typos they go straight in the bin. They don’t even get a second look. They said it told them a lot about the person applying for the job. I think P’s article (never been here before mind you) is an eye-opener – but mainly about her. How I found this page was actually by googling “how do you tell people their writing has typos?” because I’m facing such a situation. So all the comments make fascinating reading. Thank you all :-)

  42. aussiegirl
    aussiegirl says:

    Oh and may I please make a comment on P’s opening sentence: “Will everyone please shut up about the typos on blogs?”. I find this extremely rude AND off-putting as an opener. Pretty sad really. There are people from all over the world reading your blog, including myself and I live in a little corner of Australia. Strange finding someone in your position and being rude like this and getting into my mind in my little house in my little corner of the world. My kids don’t even say things like this to my face!

  43. Paresh
    Paresh says:

    I don’t understand how difficult it is for someone to type (spell, punctuate, etc.) properly while communicating. Laziness, and that’s what this is all about, shouldn’t be rewarded.

  44. Traci
    Traci says:

    I find the whole thing a bit ridiculous. Who has time to get so serious about shortcuts people take when sending messages. Of course if it is business related you should be professional but otherwise, PLEASE give me a break.

  45. Andrise
    Andrise says:

    Everything you do, your mind determine your priority, your focus or your essential needs. For instance, you think an historian or a fiction writer going to focus on spelling and grammar,of course not, their focus is on the idea or strategy. Grammar, spelling are irrelevant; because they have somebody else do it.

    • Kristin
      Kristin says:

      Wow. This is incredibly disheartening. Spelling and grammar are IRRELEVANT? Don’t think so. Historians tend to be some of the best writers around — because that’s WHAT they do; write. (I have a degree in history and know a tad about it.) As far as fiction writers? Um, gee, I would HOPE that they would pay attention to spelling and grammar. They’re kinda important when it comes to, ya know, WRITING. 

  46. Suzie Harfnan
    Suzie Harfnan says:

    Yes, I do admit I cannot stand it when people constantly point out my typos (I don’t get too many of them) and really, is spelling errors here and there really that big of an issue? The most productive, successful bloggers (who make a living and are happy) do not waste time pointing out other people’s spelling mistakes. It’s a waste of time and money.

  47. Rebecca Lincoln
    Rebecca Lincoln says:

    God bless you. I am just now developing a blog, which I considered not writing. I’m an excellent teacher, speaker, and counselor, but writing is not my long suite. After years of admin work, letters, and college papers, I know that I am a terrible editor. My brain thinks globally. I can reread something 10 times and still miss the details. I agree that presentation is important, however, I’d hate to miss what might be great information simply because the person is a lousy editor. And when my primary focus isn’t writing, does it make sense to pay an editor? Does it even fit with the feel of blogging to have something perfectly edited? Isn’t part of our beauty in our flaws?

  48. A Maui Blog
    A Maui Blog says:

    Thank you. Thank you. I am one of those who has typos on some blog posts (ok, maybe many) but has so much to do that I do not stress out on it anymore and just hit publish….

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