I am by far, not a prefect writer. My sentence structure is poor and my grammar can be criminal at times. I make mistakes. However, I try to minimize my mistakes by proofreading. I do eliminate as many typos as possible and actually capitalize the beginning of each sentence. Why do I bring this? Mainly because I’ve been reading a few new blogs and the bloggers don’t seem to think that it is important to capitalize anything. To me, it is very confusing and annoying. I also see it as a sign of laziness.
Should it bother me so much? Am I being too picky? No, I’m not. I would rather read a blog post, a book, or a short story where the author actually cared enough to pay attention to the details. I want my mind to gobble up the story and not have to slow down to interpret what the author meant when they should have capitalized “I”. Did they mean to leave it lower case?Was the sentence supposed to start there? Or maybe a comma should have gone there?
I just want the author to care. I want them to care enough to take pride in their work and make me want to read it. Trust me; I read a lot. Some people are better writers than me and some are much worse. But if they care about what they are writing, it shows in their work. If they care enough, then they might hook me into finishing their writing, get me to care and be involved.
If you are going to write, at least have pride in your work. Take pride in knowing I appreciate your hard work and effort to entertain me. Thanks for reading my post; now get back to your writing
Kevin, great post. Our kids had a book I would TRY to read to them when they were little. It was about some low self-esteemed puny fish chasing crazy dreams of being something it’s not meant to be. I would get SO crazy trying to read the book because the sentences ran on and on and the writer didn’t like commas and the name of the fish was so freaking long and impossible for a Haole to pronounce and if you wanted to read the story in a way your little gem of children could stay interested in with enunciation and “I give a damn I am trying to read this stupid book so you will enjoy it” but it’s driving me crazy and I need a glass of Scotch now.
And of course the fish lived happily ever. But I was stressed and even tried to add commas to the book before it getting “lost” in the goodwill bin.
Damn people, listen to Kevin, proof read and care! Then have a Scotch.
I’m sorry this post conjured up those bad memories for you…but at least you were able to enjoy a glass of scotch.
Even social media posts… if I post something on my phone and I have a typo that I can’t correct.. .as soon as I get home I log onto a computer and correct it. Drives me nuts.
I wrote a similar post about this as well. At the least, hit spell check people!
I agree completely. Take a minute to proofread or at least look at your posts for glaring errors. I’m certainly not perfect; but I do try to catch my typos and grammar messes. I wish others thought the way you do. Great post.
It isn’t even proofreading…they have to purposely write incorrectly. Sometimes they have some interesting thoughts but they are completely lost in the haze of being stupid. I’m not a spelling or grammar Nazi but it worthless writing! And trust me, I write a worthless advice blog so I know all about worthless writing!
They don’t capitalize? What the crap is that all about?
their sentences don’t start with a capital, cities aren’t capitalize. im not even sure they know this is incorrect. this isnt texting…its a blog post. See? Does that look good at all? My Word program is highlighting all of my misspellings! The grammar check is going nuts! How can you NOT correct that?
Pride in my work? That’ll be the day.
Yeah, I know. But that is why we keep coming back to read you….the raw feeling of your blog and the free cookies you offer!
By no means am I a great writer I also probably have bad grammar but I try to at least go through spell check before posting. That being said I have read books by published authers and have found some of their sentences either make no sense to me or some of their spelling is off on simple words I know how to spell. Everyone makes mistakes and some people are just not good at writing. To be honest I don’t care all that much at least for me I get what I am feeling out and if people want to judge me on that tiny little detail they can pretty much kiss my butt. That is what happens when you have learning disabilities. And yes I even used spell check on this comment.
I don’t mind people getting their feelings out. It is starting the sentence with a lowercase letter that is my pet peeve. And we all have some kind of learning disability; that is why I work especially hard to overcome it. Thanks for commenting today!
I came across someone who did that every paragraph was all lower case I stopped following them. And it was very hard to read with the font they had as well, the back ground you could hardly see what they had written.
Couldn’t agree more with you, Kevin! I know many people who should take a look to this post…
semi guilty here. and only because i don’t think predetermined letters deserve to be better than others (by capitalization) without actually deserving it. go figure. 😉 and don’t get me started on those damn emoticons. 😊
Reblogged this on Ancien Hippie.
Thanks for the repost!