Revenge of "Sound Off"
I found it interesting that I came across two very different responses to my last article. In the article, I offered advice on how respondents could maximize DLN’s “Sound Off” feature, and not sound like the village idiot while doing it. I received a very positive response from “Stickler,” who let me know that these instructions were long overdue.
On the other hand, a friend of mine at work, who I’ll call “CF,” had a very different reaction. CF was a little disappointed in me for giving the aforementioned advice. He looks forward to reading the “Sound Off” comments in their raw form, and revels in the perverse humor of mocking other people’s language deficiencies. I suppose I’m just as ill, as I found great humor in this also, but I did make an argument. My argument is that it can be very funny, but if it’s so garbled that I have no clue what the person is making reference to, it’s not. CF still thinks it’s funny anyway.
Dear readers tell me this: is the finding of humor in other people’s deficiencies symptomatic of a sick society, or has it always been that way? Are we at the crest before the great fall? Are we the next Roman Empire, a carbon copy of a society who reveled in butchery before a great decline? Discuss amongst yourselves, I’m getting verklemmt.
On the other hand, a friend of mine at work, who I’ll call “CF,” had a very different reaction. CF was a little disappointed in me for giving the aforementioned advice. He looks forward to reading the “Sound Off” comments in their raw form, and revels in the perverse humor of mocking other people’s language deficiencies. I suppose I’m just as ill, as I found great humor in this also, but I did make an argument. My argument is that it can be very funny, but if it’s so garbled that I have no clue what the person is making reference to, it’s not. CF still thinks it’s funny anyway.
Dear readers tell me this: is the finding of humor in other people’s deficiencies symptomatic of a sick society, or has it always been that way? Are we at the crest before the great fall? Are we the next Roman Empire, a carbon copy of a society who reveled in butchery before a great decline? Discuss amongst yourselves, I’m getting verklemmt.
posted by TGB at
12:03 AM
2 Comments:
Although I agree that being nervous when you make a call of this sort is a factor, sadly I also believe that a large part of our society just does not care about the quality of what they write or how they speak. They are even too lazy to click the spelling/grammar tool that Word so graciously offers. What’s more, they don’t like having an error pointed out to them no matter how gently one does it. I tried explaining the difference between your and you’re to someone once and was handed my head back to me on a lovely silver platter. I thought I was saving them some embarrassment, but then again, did anyone notice…..or even scarier….did anyone besides me care? Twelve years of education and far too many graduates cannot put a sentence together. What a waste.
Unfortunately I too am guilty of a chuckle now and then and have managed to produce a few chuckle inducing documents of my own. That’s only human. What is important is what we do about it. The greatest gift given to me by my mother was the love of a good book. She showed me the way I could travel from fairyland to a far off country all in one day. Please turn away from the computer for a half hour today and read to your child, your niece, or your nephew. Consider buying a book as a birthday gift instead of another computer game.
Bee: Very true. I have my mother and father to thank for my love of books and writing.
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