RANT: A Tree Becomes a Country

I REALLY HATE bad spelling and poor grammar. We all make mistakes and my e-mails and even these posts have typos, no doubt. But the standards these days are beyond the pale - at every level, whether it be in the workplace, in social media or simply receiving correspondence from someone.

But what I ABSOLUTELY ABHOR AND WILL NOT FORGIVE is bad spelling or poor grammar by people who should know better. By this I mean the likes of book publishers, editors, journalists and frankly anyone who uses the English language as a means of making a buck - and, once again, should know better.

It's NOT acceptable.

Sometimes one can spot an innocent typo and move on - I don't wish to be a Grammar Nazi - but sometimes the 'mistake' is so glaring that it is nothing more than stupidity, ignorance or laziness.

Take this corker of an example I came across when reading an article today about gold medals versus total medals at an Olympics, as linked from Yahoo News:

"There are some critics who balk at the medal count debate, citing the sheer number of competitors from bigger countries like China and the United States. The country of Cypress has just 13 members in its Olympic party. They probably aren't going to compete in any medal tallies."
Cypress?! Where the hell is that? Is that near the country of Lesbian, I guess? Or should that be Lebanon...? Is it Angora or Andorra? Gonorrhea or Ghana? Endives or Maldives? The possibilities are endless...

I know, I know, I am being so pedantic and so picky, even though last time I checked it was Cyprus, you lame excuse for a human being!



And this on a well-regarded site like www.bleacherreport.com and written with such assured aplomb by a 'professional' called Dan Levy, who is accredited as being no less than the site's "National Lead Writer." And that's what really, really irks - here's some pillock who doesn't even know how to spell a country like Cyprus, and yet he has a no doubt cushy job writing away an online sports site. He probably works all comfy from home, has a whole host of online followers and 'fans' and is feted as a proper journalist.

Cypress is a tree - I know, I know, they sound awfully similar but, hey, bitch to the citizens of Cyprus, Danny boy. I wasn't at the naming ceremony of that particular nation state - sorry.
And that is where we are today - crass mediocrity of this sort gets a good, paying job as a writer, when he would have been laughed at (and unemployed as a writer) just twenty short years ago. And I have to read this ignorant crap and just pretend it's all okay? I don't think so.

So, which is it? Ignorance? Stupidity?Or plain laziness? It actually doesn't matter - they're all bad.

And stupid, ignorant laziness should never be acceptable.

Do you get my point?