Monday, August 19, 2013

Don't worry. The homonyms can't hurt ewe.

So those long term readers out there (And a big Hello to both of you) will be aware of my habit of occasionally trolling the message boards of far right wing reactionary 'News' sites as part of my ongoing commitment to horrifying myself on a regular basis.

In amongst the solemn vows to continue living in deliberate ignorance there was a post which put forth the statement that:

 'it's to important to fight against this tyranny'

To which I replied as any sensible dog would with a post that simply read:

"it's 'too' important"

To which he replied with a fairly lengthy diatribe about how I knew what he meant and anyway they sound just the same, don't they??  This post included the line:

 'i can tell all that grammar studying you did consumed 
to much time because your lacking common sense..'

To which I, being a rational being engaged in friendly discourse, replied:

" 'You're' "

More angry diatribe, concluding with the line: 

"if you think those who tell the truth about the realities 
we face are fear mongering, than in all reality, 
your extremely delusional... 
HISTORY will tell you that... NOT ME..."

To which I, in helpful and cheery spirits, replied:

" 'Then' in all reality "  

NOTE : I did not address the comma issue.

 His response was briefer this time:

"seems 2 me that whichever way its spelled, 
it still wont make any sense 2 U"

To which I sent:
"Whichever way 'it's' spelled"

And then he stopped talking to me.  Which is too bad really, because - honestly - I could have done that all day.
A few things we should note at this juncture:

- Yes, trolling other people's message boards is an incredibly dickish thing to do.  I freely acknowledge that.* I don't know why I feel compelled to stir up the evangelicals, but for some reason I cannot resist doing so.  I have no high ground here.

*Though not as much so as correcting someones spelling in a text message conversation.  That is never, ever not a DB move.

-A quick flip through the pages of this very blog will reveal no end of typos, usage errors and homonyms.   The Vizsla has an incredibly casual attitude toward proofreading.  Towards proofreading.   Dammit, now I'm not even sure which one is right...*

*Just did the research - turns out they're pretty much interchangeable - however the article did mention that without the 's' is more common in North America and with the 's' is more common elsewhere.   I'm leaving the whole thing in as both an excuse to share that fact and direct evidence of my own fallibility. 

- No, I don't know why I typed out the conversation in screenplay format.*

*It just felt right at the time.

I guess what I'm saying is this - I don't make a point of being the spelling and grammar police - I break far too many rules myself - and if the guy in question hadn't been spouting off a stream of incredibly pompous and ill informed bullshit at the time I probably wouldn't have done so in this case.  

But at the end of the day, sometimes people just need to be made fun of.

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