2000-08-03

Mencken-without-a-C

I'm sorry I have to be doing this. It just seems so obvious to me, and likely it's just as obvious to you, but circumstances beyond my control have propelled me thus to make this Public Literacy Announcement�:

your: of or relating to you or yourself or yourselves esp. as possessor or possessors (bodies), agent or agents (contributions), or object or objects of an action (discharge).

CORRECT: "Hey, your fly's unzipped."

INCORRECT: "Hey, your a really good speller."

Let me say right here that I tend to be somewhat anal about spelling. I blame this, as I do a myriad of other personality flaws and/or quirks, on Catholic school. Generally I am pretty good about not making rash judgments about authors of documents, online and otherwise, based on a few reversed letters or incorrect use of apostrophes. But there are some things that I simply cannot let slide: the blatant disregard of the difference between a possessive (your) and a contraction (you're) just makes me want to go out and beat someone senseless with a dog-eared copy of Strunk & White. Am I harsh? Probably. Do I need to get a life? Most assuredly. But really now: were y'all out with chicken pox the day Mrs. Keating taught this shit in third fuckin' grade?

So, there's that. And really, I harbor no ill will towards recreational mis-spellers. I'm as guilty as the next Diarylander of hurriedly spewing an un-proofread entry and uploading it for all the world to see. What really kills me are people like the one Paula, Michelle and I encountered on a message board yesterday. In a nutshell, the stooge chose the moniker "Menken." And yes, she let us know that she was referring to H.L. H.L. Mencken. Normally I would let this kind of thing slide, but Mencken-without-a-C was hell-bent on bashing Paula and Michelle into kingdom come, for no real apparent reason other than lack of something to do at her temp job, one would surmise.

Now, if I were the generous sort, I would give Mencken-without-a-C the benefit of the doubt, allowing her, perhaps, the luxury of being able to claim "creative license" with her omitted consonant. But the fact of the matter is that Menken-Wenken came out with both barrels loaded, upbraiding M & P for their catty, pretentious behavior on said message board, and I'm sorry, but what's more pretentious than using "Mencken" as a screen-name, and misspelling it to boot?

Okay. I'm done. Now if you'll excuse me, it's time to go hump my dictionary...

lisamcc at 20:00:59

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