Can You Tell I'm a Former Two-Time Schoolwide Spelling Bee Winner?

[queerbychoice]

Okay, that's it. No more suffering in silence for me. It's high time I call your attention to an urgent social issue - the dangerous epidemic of spelling errors in LJ interests lists, which is threatening to render the entire neat little hyperlinked interests system worthless, because whenever you click on the links in your interests list, all you'll really find is the people who made the same spelling errors as you.

More to the point, if you're on my friends list or I'm on yours or I know you at all, and you have a spelling error in your interests list, then you should be aware: I am obsessed with this spelling error of yours. I'm so obsessed by it that if only you really knew how obsessed I am with it, you'd start worrying about getting a restraining order to keep me away from it. You need to realize that every other day for the entire time I've known you, I've been clicking on your userinfo page just to stare in obsessed exasperation at that spelling error for an hour or more, debating in my head again and yet again as to whether I know you well enough to get away with informing you that you can't spell, whether now is the right moment to do so, whether I'll come across as rude or petty or condescending, whether you won't like me anymore once you find out what a shallow, surface-oriented, spelling-obsessed person I secretly am. But I can't keep it quiet any longer. I'm coming out of the closet to plead with all of you to relieve me of my spelling-error-induced agony!!

The following is not necessarily a comprehensive list of all spelling errors occurring in the LJ interests lists of everyone I know. It's merely a small collection of the ones that I'm sufficiently obsessed with that they came to mind when I sat down to make my list. These spelling errors keep me awake at night. I have nightmares about these spelling errors.

• abstracted misspelled "Emily Dickinson"


• allyx misspelled "narcissism"


• asrai_d mistyped "intuition" (but she/they also list(s) "incorrect spelling" as an interest so, um, it's fitting . . .)


• dlfke misspelled "Paul Cézanne"


• eeek mistyped "electronica")


• frankepi had previously misspelled "civil disobedience" and "first amendment," but he has obligingly corrected them already because I pleaded with him to relieve me of the extreme mental distress they were causing me. You can observe the extent of my former distress, however, by the fact that I still remember the exact spelling mistakes he had previously made, even though three or four months have now passed since the time when he obligingly corrected them for me.


• khudirambose misspelled "Howard Zinn"


• lentrot mistyped "atheism"


• moistgrrluk misspelled "weird people"


• ohandrea mistyped "reservoir dogs"


• theobscure misspelled "existentialism"


• tikarass and transientdyke both misspelled "Audre Lorde" in an identical manner to each other, and to five other people plus a community, though in a different manner from the manner in which arapahoe_centro and one other person misspelled "Audre Lorde."

Again, I plead with all of you: Relieve me of this agony, for I cannot endure it another second!

Comments

[grecianurn.livejournal.com]

I didn't make it to your list...whew!I get very annoyed too when I see spelling errors in interests lists...some people spell the word corectly,and then include a semi-colon,which can be more distressing.

[grecianurn.livejournal.com]

corectly = correctly

[(Anonymous)]

I think he/she was trying to do correctly incorrectly deliberately there.

It was not a sp.

Emm

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Uh, she was correcting her own spelling error. I think she'd know if she meant it that way.

[ellenneithernor.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* If people read the directions for putting in their interests they'd know to use commas and not "and"s to connect things. That's not intelligence, that's just common sense.

Personally, I'd rather people point out my spelling errors. That way, I feel stupid for a few seconds, but it saves me from looking even more stupid in the future. However, I don't go through strangers' journals assuming they'll feel the same way and giving them "hints" on what they misspelled. Friends, though, I'd probably tell...

[grecianurn.livejournal.com]

Yes,it was a genuine spelling error.

[embryomystic.livejournal.com]

What the hell is that supposed to mean, and what do you reckon is gained by pointing that out and explaining your theory?