As a freelance editor, I’ve been witness to some Ishtar-level disasters of spelling, punctuation, word choice and sentence construction. On one level, I am grateful for the business. But on another level, I am consistently disheartened when I read a graduate thesis written by someone with a clear phobia of commas. Please don’t misunderstand me — I don’t fashion myself as the second coming of E.B. White, and my education acumen isn’t high enough to pinpoint why most high school seniors graduate writing at a level of, well, not high school seniors (I think some of the main culprits are the proliferation of emailing and texting and crowded school curricula that de-emphasize the teaching of writing). Whatever the case, my adventures in proofreading have sharpened what was already a near-pathological hatred of grammatical and punctuation errors. Where once I would frown with annoyance as a truck bearing the sign “Bobs Painting” barreled past me, I now find myself deciphering a conspiracy (“Bob ordered the sign, but the real fault lies with the maker of the sign. I mean, making signs is his business. And Bobs employees evidently never said anything, so they’re complicit in this too and…oh shit, it’s happening to me…).

Look, do I realize that I should probably expend more energy contemplating the plight of Rwandan refugees? Of course. But I cannot wrap my head around why more people don’t care about spelling, punctuation and composition. The way someone communicates through the written word represents that individual. For example, if someone circulates an error-filled brochure to advertise a business, the potential harm is great: the number of people who will read the love letter to sloppiness far outnumber those that the proprietor will ever be able to charm in person. Put another way, would that individual dress like a slob to meet a client face-to-face? Put yet another way, how has the English language wronged us so egregiously that we strive to discover ever-diabolical ways to punish it?!  All right, I’ve officially digressed into Frustrated English Teacher mode. I think I need to go read me some Strunk & White.