Does Anyone On Board Know How to Fly a Plane?

Me want repli too coment what man writ at botum ov old post.

Well, according to Bob, that should suffice.

Bob has just commented on a post by Monika from September 2008 entitled “Anal Reader Behaviour” (you have a lot of catching up to do, Bob, me ol’ mucker). The comment has not been approved yet, which is not down to me, and Bob is not his real name. I believe his name is Indian in origin, but to spare any embarrassment my comments may cause, I’ll call him Bob.

Bob says: “grammer shouldn’t be so highlighted when writing. Only thing i would like to suggest that people should understand what you want to say.
bloggers are specially known for their views not for grammer.”

Bob, I think, misses the point entirely, although I do like his ironic opening spelling mistake. Monika’s post spoke about how writers can be pounced on when they make grammatical errors, as though we, as a group of professionals, must be infallible. Monika’s thrust was that everyone makes mistakes at times, so don’t get all angsty about it.

Perfectly fair comment. Making the odd mistake is human. Professionals do make mistakes. They should just make a lot less of them. A professional who makes a lot of mistakes is … what’s the word I’m searching for …?

Oh, yes. An amateur.

The suggestion by Bob that writing suffices when it reaches a level that its meaning can be basically understood is preposterous. It is everything that’s wrong with education and especially freelance writing today. I know when my dog scratches the front door that he wants to go outside. I get his meaning but he’s still a dog; I’m not going to be taking his advice on the stock market.

I would say that the manner in which a person gets their point across speaks volumes about their character, personality, and level of education. Personally, I am not terribly interested in reading the views of anyone whose writing prowess equates to little more than grunting. Of course you don’t have to be a professional to blog, but you should at least try to instill in your readers the sense that you are smart enough to warrant being heard. Call me a snob, but I have never in my life met a thick person I really liked. (I expect Forbes will want to quote me on that for their Thought of the Day.)

Would you read The Wall Street Journal if it was riddled with errors? Would you trust that the authors of the articles possessed the requisite intelligence to be believed or have their views respected?

I suspect Bob does not have English as his first language, or he knows Indian English. With the greatest respect, Indian English is not English English, just as American English is not English English. However, there is an accepted standard with good writing that eradicates those regional differences. Publications like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and indeed The Times of India, rarely exhibit in their writing the dialect or turn of phrase the writers themselves may speak with.

It is totally wrong to suggest it’s okay to lower standards just because you yourself, for whatever reason, cannot meet the required level.

I can’t fly a plane, but, when I board one, I’m not so jealous of my pilot or dismissive of his skills that I’d prefer the aviation authorities scrapped their qualifications and allowed me to take over in the cockpit.