Oh dear, I have a spelling and grammatical error on the introduction of a web page. It is the end of civilization as we know it, and it exemplifies how horribly inadequate, shameful, and without merir the entire US educational system really is. I must humbly apologize to all my US fellow educators, as my errant typo has apparently signified the death sentence of all ideas, accomplishments from south of the Canadian border.
This is according to an email feedback message that flew in today:
I find it interesting and quite disturbing that a community college student or employee is unable to spell basic English words. What does that tell you about the US education system? Just that it will never attain the international recognition that Canada enjoys in this field. You have numerous spelling errors on the listed web page. And, I’m not talking about long or complicated words. I’m talking about very basic words.
Oh geepers, I kant spel near goodly ’nuff fer you smart Canadiens up thar, I musta be am just plum full of dumb, American stooopidity. Yep.
Frankly I would take an interesting misspelled good concept or interesting thought any day over some comma queen’s perfectly spelled prim, proper, and pompous arrogance.
So my reply:
Normally I thank people for their kind notifications of errors or typos on our web pages, so I almost said thank you– for the errors are now corrected.
I find it interesting and quite disturbing when people get so bent out of shape over details that have no bearing or effect on the content in question. It almost seems that proper spelling is more important than ideas.
I find it even more nteresting and disturbingwhen people express a superior attitude by drawing ridiculous and illogical grand conclusion from small instances. Please enjoy your grandiose reputation and all the glory it entails, and I cannot wait to share your thoughtful and glorious words with my fellow Canadian colleagues. Heck, maybe they feel the same way.
Enough said, I got some hogs to wash and a string to fix on my banjo.
Oh, the humanity! The speling mistakes in this post alone nearly burst my screen into flames! 🙂
So… who was it? Go ahead… Out ’em! Heck… I may even now the person (was it Bob in Toronto? he’s a bit of a crank…)
Alan, as a Canadian, I must admit that I’m also easily outraged by spelling and grammatical errors. You must understand that when we come home from our long dogsled commute, we can be a bit cranky. Due to our extreme weather, we spend our evenings indoors, surfing the web and trying to make the world a better place through improving grammar and spelling. It’s our contribution.
“Just that it will never attain the international recognition that Canada enjoys in this field.”
Is this a sentence fragment I see before me? I suppose correct spelling is more important than good ideas AND correct sentence structure. We Canadians do great in spelling bees, but we can’t write sentences.
“The ironing is delicious.” Bart Simpson