Facebook, social networking, and the internet in general are hardly bastions of correct grammar. It annoys me but I’ve come to accept it. Then on Facebook, my stepmother responded to a comment from someone, (call him Dave) who isn’t my friend but it then showed up in my news.
(name and nickname changed but otherwise the same)
I don’t know “Teapot” although my stepmother did know him but not closely. When the subject was brought up, after offering sympathies I mentioned how badly the notification was written. (I mean for something this important, at least spend some time making it look right, even if all the rest of the stuff you put online looks like it was written by a dyslexic 3 year old.*) My stepmother and my Dad disagreed, and in fact seemed to think my comment was in poor taste. So, given that you’re not going to convince Dave to make any effort with the other 99% of what he posts is it out of line to expect it for something as sensitive as a death notification?
You’re not wrong for mentioning it. You ARE wrong for mentioning it in the comments for the death notice. That was most assuredly in *incredibly *poor taste.
You’re asking a biased group by posting it here. I always explain this place as a set of message boards I’ve posted to for years where people tend to use proper grammar and punctuation even though they’re online.
I got called on for being a jerk when pointing out atrocious spelling.
A girl I worked with who claimed she had psychic abilities :rolleyes: who I tried not to make fun of that much was telling me about a guy friend of hers who was murdered a few years back. The police had deemed it a suicide but she and her pshychic friends had determined it was a murder.:rolleyes::rolleyes:
How? Becasue one of them talks to him from beyond the grave. They even created their own website about it.
She showed it to me and the catch phrase in big letters on the front page said:
**DONUT BELEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ! **
I laughed myself silly for about 10 minutes while she called me an insensitive jerk.
Considering that they were your words and that this happened fairly recently, I sure do wonder why you’re withholding from us exactly how you phrased this remark that you’re surprised has generated so much controversy.
I think perspective matters here. You’re right, the post was too casual by most standards, but the people closer to the deceased than you aren’t the ones to hash it out with. When someone you know dies then you can complain about all the tacky things his friends did to your parents.
That being said - yes, that level of lack of caring about the simplest rules of writing is atrocious. However, the timing is terrible because you just make yourself look like a big jerk, and the writer is going to brush you off as just being a big jerk and not take your advice. Plus depending on how close they were, the writer may not have had much ability to concentrate to get much of anything right. I wanted to be the one to break the news to my sister that our dad had died unexpectedly, and I think I sucked at it. (I don’t even remember exactly what I said, nearly two decades ago, but it certainly wasn’t artful or gentle.)
It’s Facebook. That isn’t going on the man’s tombstone.
You’re right, but I don’t think you should have said anything. You’re not their teacher, parent, boss, or even their peer. People can be very sensitive about their writing ability and to point it out to them is tacky, in my opinion. My sister is dyslexic and spells atrociously on Facebook. It is what it is. Big deal.
I also wonder if you pointed this out because she’s your stepmother, and if you would have pointed the errors out to your biological mother if she’d had posted that (Not assuming anything… don’t know if you’re in contact with her, or what your relationship is like with her, etc).
Just to clarify, I barely know Dave. I didn’t make any comment to Dave or online at all. The ‘not my exact words’ thing was to illustrate that although the way it is phrased in the OP is my actual opinion, the way I phrased it was a lot more neutral, not the opposite. I had no beef with my stepmother’s post, (other than the general niggling irritation I have with all Internetese), as it was a reply rather than an announcement.
Y’know, not everyone is a skilled writer. People don’t always understand that absent facial or vocal cues, their audience may interpret their message solely based on how it’s written and minor things like capitalization and your/you’re have amplified effect because there is no other way to gauge the intonation and voice of the speaker – especially in short, one-off sentences. This is obvious to anyone who spends significant amounts of time on grammarnazi boards like this, but not so obvious to the rest of the world.
And sometimes people understand and simply don’t care. Either they know you well enough and assume you’re not going to judge them based on their spell checker score or they’ve simply been assimilated into the Internet proper, old-school writing be damned. And some people are just more vocally-oriented and don’t think in “writer voice”.
But that doesn’t make their message or intent any less serious. If you know the person, it helps to imagine their messages in their actual speaking voice, but even if you don’t… Big. Fucking. Deal.
He said something and you understood it. Perhaps it wasn’t perfect, but you got the gist. It may not be the most eloquent epitaph, but I think it’s safe to say he meant it seriously, and for you to be upset over a triviality of his presentation IMO just makes you a snob. A correct snob, but still a snob.
It’s not out of line to expect it, but it is out of line to think you can make them give what you want, just because it annoys you.
It annoys you. Big whoop. Bitch in private, or on a board, not after the fact in hopes of shaming them: 1. It won’t work 2. It makes you look like a jerk
So are you, in a manner of speaking. From a linguist’s point of view, punctuation and capitalization are are artificial constructs that do not belong to the natural grammar of the language.
I for one can understand why you felt compelled to say something. If a beloved passes, their memory deserves at least the forethought to use, oh, I don’t know, punctuation? If I died, and the first a loved one heard of it was “brian aka crown prince has died we dont how. rip brother”, I’d be pretty pissed off, if I weren’t, you know, dead. I wouldn’t want a eulogy, but come on.
And so I don’t think it was in poor taste to mention that to your dad and stepmom, just like I wouldn’t think it in poor taste to point out a misspelling in a newspaper obituary for a loved one - some things are worth the extra care and effort, and when people clearly don’t put forth that extra diligence, it seems to me to be negligent and disrespectful.
Now, if you had actually aired your grievance on the Facebook comments, that would be a bit douchey, but in talking with your family about it? Not at all.
Just to clarify, it was some guy named Dave who wrote this, and not your stepmom? That’s why I don’t see the reason to point this out. It’s not like they’re going to personally call out Dave on his facebook etiquette. And they might be somewhat sympathetic to this guy right now, what with him recently having lost a friend.
I wouldn’t have said anything. You didn’t know the guy, so why do you care about it being a respectful send-off or not? It’s Facebook, it just a step up from, (and sometimes also is), cell-phone texting. It’s not like he’s a reporter or writing the obituary.
There are times to correct people, but that was not the time.