Pax Nortona – A Blog by Joel Sax
From the Land of the Lost Blunderbuss
The Proofreading Brigade
Posted on September 27, 2004 in Crosstalk Thinking Writing
I must have made a significant point. I know this because the proofreading brigade (his name is doug) came out to attack me for mispellings and misremembering the name of the OC Weekly columnist who lambasted the OC Metblog as the “worst blog ever”. She won’t, of course, admit to misquoting me. I have freely admitted to getting her name wrong.
There’s a stupidity at work here, one which afflicts smart people: If you make a spelling mistake, if you misplace a comma, everything you say can be discounted. I’ve seen this myth all over the net, usually deployed in defense of some pundit who has been caught mischaracterizing someone. God forbid that a mere blogger who takes no salary, has no news machine behind him, and doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the “name” of the person who he dares to critique should be allowed to wage an argument that sticks! Karl Rove didn’t invent anything new: the Internet is proof of that. Arguments of substance must be addressed with niggling.
Rebecca Schoenkopf made sure to write to me to say that I got her name wrong and I apologized immediately. Still no renunciation of her misrepresentation of me. One hopes that a good example would be seen and heeded, but I am not about to expect that of any wage slave who must evoke a mask of perfection in order to keep her job. Funny how people can get all bent out of shape about letters and periods while thinking it is just fine to remain in denial about their miscomprehension and misattribution of what another person said. I’m not waiting for an apology: I’ve learned that those who consciously or not work in the way of Karl Rove never ever give them.
As for doug, I think my reply to him in the comments suffices: “Some are meant to write and think, others are meant to proofread, doug. ” There is value in both.
Of course, there is a comeback. You are supposed to think and write. My comeback is that the phrase is a parallel — two things happening at the same time — not a sequence. I would further counter that one should think, write, and not stop thinking just because one has written. His probable comeback comes from a jump to conclusions, which those out to defend the indefensible spend hours doing deep kneebends in order to accomplish. As for me, I think I’ll move on, reserving the right to laugh in the event that they try to formulate yet another last word on the subject.
Oh and Rebecca now says that she was joking when she called us “the worst blog ever”. Sounding more and more like the Bush Administration there, Becca. How about watching your hyperbole?
