The Typo Monster
If there is one thing I’ve learned over the last few years of the Social Media Revolution it is that the Typo Monster believes in Karma.
How many times have you seen a person have a typo in a post on any social media sight and one of their friends or followers feels the need to point it out? I see it constantly, and I was guilty from time to time myself when I first opened my personal Facebook account. But after a while the Too & To and the Your & You’re all start to blend.
Not to mention every time I see someone correct someone else, the Typo Monsters strikes. I have even seen people mess up in their correction post. There they are pointing out another’s mistake and screwing up at the same time. Proving how swift the monster can be. My fellow authors seem to be particularly bad about this. I screw up, I get to typing so fast about something that I don’t proofread, so what? I’m human. Then a fellow author points it out…but the punchline is I have seen typos in their posts that I ignored, and even more karmic…in their books.
The moral, friends, is this: Don’t correct someone on their social media posts. You didn’t pay for it, it cost you nothing, and it will bite you on the ass one day. If you see a typo in a news article, paper, or book then you have every right to play English teacher, but if it was free…see Nick’s number one rule for world peace and shut the fuck up.
I’d never correct a Twitter or Facebook posting or an email from a friend. But if you’re being paid to write, then you’re fair game.
July 8, 2012 at 10:01 am
I believe it’s fair game in anything that is supposed to be written professionally, but not for the writer’s personal correspondences. When we speak, we seldom use proper English, and most personal correspondences are on the same level as conversations. That is just my opinion on it.
July 8, 2012 at 11:18 am
Typos are like viruses, they breed in books when you’re not looking. I think you’re right, it would be pretentious to correct typos in someone’s tweets; we all do it all the time. But in books, that’s a different thing. It interferes with the magic of ‘the suspension of disbelief’. As in: ‘Honey,’ he said. ‘You’re so beautiful, I want to make lvoe to you.’ (!)
July 29, 2012 at 6:48 am