I have been writing for the Web since 1995, and you’d think I would know by now not to engage the loonies, but every month or so I still attempt to interact with them. Today’s email gem was from a woman who found a typo/spelling error on my blog. A simple way to report a spelling error is to write: “I found a typo or spelling error on your site” and then point out the word and the URL where it was found. Short, to the point, doesn’t make any inane references. In fact, it’s hard to object to an email like that. When I get those, I typically respond with “Thanks! I’ll get that fixed as soon as possible.” But as you might have guessed, that’s not what she wrote. She informed me of the spelling error. Chastised me for not using a spell-checker, and then said that spelling errors like that bring into question all the facts presented on the site. I replied telling her that my spell checker (and I have two - one in the browser for blog posts and one in my editor where I write the blog posts first) did not object to my spelling of the word. But that I would fix it to her preferred spelling as soon as I could. I closed it with “Thank you for your feedback.” And I figured that was the end of it. I mean, I was polite in my reply, and I said I would fix it. What else could she want? Hahahahahaha! Apparently I wasn’t sufficiently cowed by her assessment of me so she replied to (in effect) call me a liar. She wrote, “I find it amazing how people don’t want to admit to their mistakes.” Then she wrote “look at the little red squiggly under the word, that means it’s misspelled.” And she closed with “I read your site every day and I daily find spelling errors on the Web.” Let’s take these one at a time: 1. admitting my mistakes: Yes, I don’t like “constructive criticism” but honestly, I don’t think her first email was all that constructive. It was rude and made implications about my abilities as a writer and fact checker. If she were my mother or my elementary grammar teacher, the tone would have been fine. But she’s neither. As far as I know, my only mistake was in using a spell checker that doesn’t conform to her dictionary. I did say I would fix it, even if I didn’t agree that it was an error. 2. looking at the spell checker. I told her in my first email that the “red squiggly” wasn’t there. If I accept her premise that I should use a spell checker, then I should trust its results, shouldn’t I? But in her world I must know what words the spell checker doesn’t know. 3. reading my site daily. If she really does read it daily, she would know that I don’t regularly make a lot of spelling errors or typos. And while I’d love to be “ruler of the Web,” that title has not been voted to me, so I can’t control the typos on pages that aren’t mine. As soon as I can, I’ll send electric shocks to writers who post spelling errors on websites. If you want to report errors to me, please do so. I appreciate it, And like most of my readers, I’m only human and do make mistakes. Just remember that even if you do read my site daily, we are not best friends, you aren’t my editor/mother/grammar teacher, and I don’t know you. Pretend you’re approaching a stranger in public when you write your email. Who knows, if you’re nice enough, you might even turn into a friend of mine (not making any promises). But if you’re rude, sarcastic, or mean, the best you can expect is a reply in kind. But I really should know better and not reply to you at all.
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