I find John interesting, probably because he’s so different from me. I’d much rather “mingle” on Twitter, than spend time critizing others!

I prefer to find amusement in spelling mistakes. Like when someone makes a typo in the common misspelling “definatly” and all of a sudden they’re doing everything “defiantly” instead. It makes people’s Facebook status update much more entertaining. “I’m defiantly not going to have this paper finished on time!”

“A small but vocal subculture has emerged on Twitter of grammar and taste vigilantes who spend their time policing other people’s tweets — celebrities and nobodies alike.”

Is this real? Are there clubs and meetings and so forth of “grammar Nazis”? Because when I read this, it sounds to me like someone has been corrected one-too-many times, and is no vilifying his perceived opponents.

I think that people who correct spelling and grammar are just acting to correct something that bugs them. They aren’t “choosing” to be annoyed, it is just the way that they are. Many of them probably feel that they are helping out the person that they are correcting.

Maybe they’re misguided or unwanted, but in the end they’re just people, and I think that painting them as a malicious club of ne’er-do-wells is somewhat disingenuous.

“…is no vilifying…” should be “…is now vilifying…”

There’s no need to thank me.

I blame the absence of an Internet when I was young… back when you didn’t need countless misspellings to accurately draw the conclusion that 95% of journalists are idiots. When someone clicks “send” on a post, tweet, email, etc., they should expect such pettiness. Prudence is far less common.

Now that I think about it, I don’t think you can even turn the auto-correct off on an iPhone. Can you?

I think the iPhone story is a ruse!

And that’s your prerogative. I don’t give a crap about your appearance either! I’m not going to get on your case about it, but at least I know what kind of person I’m talking to – Someone who doesn’t give a shit.

I’m willing to cut a lot of slack if the author at least gets his idea across.

KTHXBAI

On the Cusack non-story – it wasn’t his spelling or grammar that got me to eventually unfollow him, it was his inability to articulate or to tweet anything worth reading. Sorry, Xeni, we obviously have different definitions of “down to earth”. (Are you sure he didn’t have an assistant write the guest post?)

Love your acting work, Mr Cusack, but your writing? #notsomuch

I’d give him a shot on Twitter again, if I were you, I think he’s got the hang of the medium more now.

Yes, I am quite sure the guest posts (we’ve published two so far) were not written for him by an assistant, or in any way not representative of his own true thoughts. That, too, is an unfairly meanspirited thing to say, and a slam against Boing Boing and myself and our guest which I do not welcome or appreciate.

For some, it’s not a matter of being “sloppy,” unconcerned, or lazy. It can be a kind of disability or difference.

So, keep that in mind before getting all spellier-than-thou on folks.

when I read what you write, I am your guest. please take your role as host to heart.

oh, and (obligatory):

“Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?”