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

Re: You "spelling snob", you...

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

"The logical conclusion of the critic who says, 'God, these people...they can't even SPELL' is to say that they have no right to have an LJ at all."

How in the hell do you figure I was saying anything like that? Two of my three closest friends were on that list of people who made spelling errors. I very, very deeply respect their intelligence. They do, however, spell words wrong, and when they do so in a place that interferes with the purpose of the hyperlinked interest system, I am going to occasionally inform them of the correct spellings.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't figure you were saying anything like that. I said the logical conclusion of...

The main focus of all my comments is that I think that all spelling errors in LJs, whether they are contained in the interests lists or in the comments, should be tactfully overlooked. People should be encouraged to express themselves. If they are trying to express themselves and what they are generating is not complete nonsense, then great: whether the product is the Queen's English or some remote corruption of it, ought not to be considered so important amongst LJournalists as letting just people be themselves.

[embryomystic.livejournal.com]

I don't see how that's the logical conclusion of this argument AT ALL. BIG leap in logic.