Short Rant

[rinue]

I hate people who comment on message boards to say "not to be rude, but doesn't your publication have copy editors? You missed [fill in the blank, usually a style choice and not a grammar error]." They're not only rude and wrong; I always picture them as the kind of strangers who pull you aside and say, with down-tilted chin and pursed lips, "sweetie, you shouldn't be wearing an open-toe shoe with hose, especially at your weight" and then look at you like you're supposed to thank them for saving you.

Comments

[movingfinger]

I don't bother with leaving them messages on message-boards; as I have observed the layoffs of copy editors and proofreaders at several publications I regularly read, I fire off error-noting missives with the remark that they should hire someone to keep themselves from looking like a second-grade homeroom newsletter.

In other cases, I assume they're working at that level of literacy and roll my eyes, especially if the error is one that a read-through by any other person than the writer would have caught.

[rinue]

When it comes to large-scale publishers who lay off copy editors (and more importantly, fact checkers) as not necessary, I can tirade with the best of them. As someone who is periodically employed as a copy editor, it not only strikes me at home; it's something I am often distracted by. I have active active opinions on things like semicolons, various compound words, capitalization of, for instance, "internet," and the use of "they" as a singular (which I have ultimately and after extensive debate and research decided I support).

What sets me off against a grammar-picker is message board comments on what are effectively blog entries by unpaid or barely-paid authors, when the comment doesn't have a tone of "hey, you missed a typo" so much as "shut up if you can't talk right." And I've noticed these comments usually claim to be about grammar, but more frequently fall into gray areas like hyphen use, split infinities, and ending sentences with prepositions, things which are often not practiced for clarity but as cultural markers. It's very "wrong fork."

Mainly, I hate adamant corrections in which the correction is flat-out wrong, and practiced mainly as a demonstration that the poster knows a particular term (but not the linguistic background or cultural context). It usually seems not like a passionate love of language (which I admire), but a wrong-headed attempt to social climb, one which shuts down discourse rather than ennobling it.

[movingfinger]

Oh, on blogs, anything goes. It is the poster's choice whether or not to look like a prat, I always assume. There is no point telling them about it; they have decided to post it that way and that's up to them.

And the wrong correction of an error! Oh dear yes.

[valancy_jane]

I know what you mean. There's nothing more crushing than to work so hard to make a point - to do something lovely - and have someone note that you used the wrong "their."

[rinue]

I think you're really hit on it; it's a sort of callousness, this idea that "I don't have to pay attention to you because you are clearly far, far beneath me, and it's not even worth engaging with your ideas." Which is bad enough when the person's right about a typo or something, and only gets more absurd when the comment itself, as it often does, either gets the rule wrong or itself contains an error (or, frequently, makes assumptions about all of English based on a construction or idiom that is regional). It's sort of a misapplication of a logic rule to the effect "wrong in part; wrong in sum" given that the logic of the argument doesn't rest on the spelling, which is why for instance one can make an argument while speaking aloud.

[valancy_jane]

I may have hit it, but you explained it much better. But yes - exactly. One of the most crushing experiences at RE was when I asked an acquaintence to give me a review of RE when we were just starting out to see where we could improve. (Maybe it was so memorable as I hadn't developed a thick skin yet.) His entire critique consisted of the fact that we had misspelled Anne Rice's name "Ann" in one of a dozen articles. He called us unprofessional and amateurish - and made no comment on the layout, the articles, the fiction, the resources, or any damn other thing. It was crushing.