I’ve been busy getting ready to head out of town for the holiday weekend, but I wanted to do an update for those of you not on Twitter. It sounds like two more of the dwarves will be getting on board with their red plaid shirts soon!
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
You’re writing, be it a blog post, a 120 character tweet, a Facebook status or whatever. The words are just flowing and you’re on a roll. Finished, you press enter and there are your words out there for all to see. Crap! Instead of you’re you used your! Or as the case was for me last night on Twitter, fair instead of fare.
I don’t know about everyone else, but these typos happen to me all the time. In the case of writing a blog post I don’t just press enter. Generally speaking, I comb through the post three or four times in order to catch typos and even then, the moment I press publish, I’ll spot another. Twitter and even Facebook however are different. Because of the way tweets fly by on Twitter along with the number of people that are sometimes involved in the conversation, I am often typing quite quickly and pressing send without a reread. This leads to an even higher number of typos on my part. And yes, I cringe every time I notice one of them, as I did last night.
Now, I’ve had my writing corrected before online, but that was in relation to my fanfic. A scenario in which I specifically requested that readers offer constructive criticism. But last night, was my first experience with unsolicited correction. During a chat with someone on Twitter a third party popped in to tell me I’d used the wrong word. First of all DUH!!! I knew as soon as I pressed enter, but Twitter doesn’t offer an edit feature. Secondly, REALLY??? Joining someone else’s conversation with the sole intent of correcting them. WTF?
I have a pretty thick skin, so I’m not going to skulk off into the shadows because someone told me I used the wrong word. But what about a student of English who has worked up the courage to comment on a blog or tweet in a language they are still learning? Or what about someone who just isn’t that great with written English, but can still convey their thoughts well? I would hate for unsolicited corrections to influence people’s willingness to be a voice in our fandom.
It’s pretty clear where I stand on this issue, no? I find such corrections to be tacky and rude. Various places where people go to be part of a fandom are not a classroom and people should be able to relax, have fun, and as someone put it to me last night, “not have to walk around on eggshells.” Part of me thinks my reaction to this incident is overkill. However, I also know that I’m not alone in my frustration. I’ve had friends in the fandom complain of similar things happening to them.
So I’m asking you dear readers: When–in the context of fandom–is it appropriate to correct someone else’s writing? Just when solicited? In private? On Twitter? In comments on blog posts?
Okay, not really. But Nathan Kress has been tweeting again. 😉
I’m squeeing a bit, not gonna lie! Lovely first pic from Black Sky!
https://twitter.com/Todd_Garner/status/238738012421386240/photo/1
Me, My Thoughts, and Richard Armitage 