Pet peeve
You can rant all you want about discrimination and claim to be a great writer, but if you can’t even spell correctly, that really doesn’t help your cause any. Great writers do not allow homonyms to trip them up all the time, do not confuse countable and uncountable nouns, do not have such difficulties with subject-verb agreement, and do not jump from one tense to another in the same paragraph. Great writers also know that “even though”, “a lot” and “all right” are two separate words.
I do not consider myself a great writer, but sloppy writing, bad punctuation and lousy grammar irritates me no end. It’s different if English is not your first language - I applaud those who are brave enough to practise writing in English, despite the mistakes they might make along the way. However, when you are a person who not only speaks English as a first language but claims to be a “great writer”, there’s no excuse for careless writing.
Don’t think I’ve ever called myself a ‘great writer’ but ouch - I read your post and see myself in it.
(Time to start proofreading my own work…)
Comment by Niki — June 27, 2005 @ 12:11 pm
It’s pretty difficult to proofread one’s own work, actually, because as a writer you tend to be too close to the work to see the mistakes. I’m good at proofreading other people’s writing but when it comes to mine, I still miss things pretty often.
Comment by Scribbler — June 29, 2005 @ 4:17 am
LOL Well, I don’t mean edit my own work. But just reading it once after you write. I do that with all my articles, but when it comes to my blog, I don’t really care… I should tho.
Comment by Niki — June 29, 2005 @ 5:52 am
I’m really anal, so I always read through my blog posts at least once before publishing and once after publishing. When I wrote to pen-pals in secondary school, I also used to re-read my letters before sealing them in the envelope and mailing them!
Comment by Scribbler — June 29, 2005 @ 2:41 pm
In American English, at least, “alright” is a proper word. My common error is verb tense. My first drafts are always mixing that up. Edited works are usually fixed, but blog posts are not.
Comment by kevin — June 29, 2005 @ 6:27 pm
In American English, at least, “alright” is a proper word.
I know, but we in Malaysia use British English.
One can’t afford to be sloppy and waver between the two, otherwise one tends to get confused and master neither.
Comment by Scribbler — June 29, 2005 @ 6:38 pm
The more I read your blog, the more I not only like you, but respect you. English is such a beautiful language, that is being butchered by people who want to find an easy way out with typing less. I hold the same passion for writing as probably you do. English is not just my first language, but neither the second. But I do hope that one day I can end up a “good writer”.
Comment by Sudeep — July 3, 2005 @ 7:23 pm