Dear Very Upset Internet Strangers,

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Dear Very Upset Internet Strangers,

I’ve been reading your heartwrenching post, and I know how sad you must be. But please please, in future posts? THINK about your spelling. Re-read what you’ve written. I don’t mean to be harsh in your time of distress, but I just can’t be properly sympathetic when I read that your favorite dog died or your husband of 15 years is leaving you for a hula dancer, and that you balled your eyes out for hours because of it.

Spelling DOES matter, truly.

Sincerely and sympathetically hoping you are a little less sad and not too badly chafed,

saje

2

context?

3

Just wondering how many times the OP proofread his post for spelling errors before hitting the “submit” button.

4

One too few, clearly.

(Or else, they’re addressing someone with an…interesting response to grief.)

5

Spelling is a luxury for the cultural elite. Good Americans don’t need no edukasion.

6

Balling does not equal crying. It does not spark sympathy in me.

And I do NOT need the mental image of someone balling their eyes out over the body of their dead dog!

7

I reviewed it twice.

8

Am I missing something? Which OP?

And why does ‘in future posts?’ need a question mark?

9

I don’t know, just channeling my inner Valley Girl I guess. :cool:

10

Bawling not balling.

You have essentially made a fool of yourself by using the wrong word. You also have a handful of punctuation errors.

11

I think the point was that other people post that they balled their eyes out for hours, when they mean bawled their eyes out for hours, and saje finds it hard to be compassionate when he has an image of sad people screwing for hours (my personal image was someone at work with a melon baller, but to each their own).

12

You’ve kinda missed the point. You won’t be the only one.

When someone’s grieving, though, I give them even more leeway than usual for typos and other errors. OTOH, giving the reader an amusing mental image (like kicking footballs in their own eyes) would be a little out of place with the serious content of the post.

13

The word “balling” as used in the OP means fucking.

14

Doesn’t surprise me. I’m pretty dense… :smiley:

15

There is more than one meaning to the word balling.

16

To me balling = screwing, unless there’s a specific mention of paper or melons. Yes my mind’s in the gutter, what of it? :smiley:

I’m glad someone got my point! I didn’t think it was that obscure, to be honest. Definitely mundane, though, and possibly snicker-worthy.

Ah well, on to the next minor irritation…

17

Not in a quote box:
Dear Very Upset Internet Strangers,

I’ve been reading your heartwrenching post, and I know how sad you must be. But please, please, in future posts? THINK about your spelling. Re-read what you’ve written. I don’t mean to be harsh in your time of distress, but I just can’t be properly sympathetic when I read that your favorite dog died, or your husband of 15 years is leaving you for a hula dancer; and that you “balled your eyes out for hours” because of it.

Spelling DOES matter, truly.

Sincerely and sympathetically hoping you are a little less sad and not too badly chafed,

saje

I saw only two actual errors (in red), and two stylistic choices (in blue) that would have made the post more clear. Everything else seems purely stylistic. Especially that question mark–it’s a normal inflection, and I can’t think of any other punctuation mark that would get it across. At least, I don’t like the colon or the dash.

What mistakes are you guys seeing?