Spell "Ego"

I have a shockingly bad memory. Fact.

It’s one of the main reasons I married Louise as she remembers everything. Frequently she’ll turn to me and say “today is [insert obscure person she went to school with and hasn’t seen for 20 years] birthday” to which my only reply is to murmur “ohhh” and shake my head slightly, mainly because I haven’t the foggiest as to who she is referring (and the thought has just struck me that she could be making it up, after all we went to different schools and whilst some of the names are familiar in the “faint bell in the depths of the back of my head” kinda way, I’m not ever going to be able to contradict her… anyway, let’s get out of parenthesis).

So, given that I’ve an awful memory and I’ve never been the best at keeping archives, and historical facts up-to-date I’ve been slowly creating an Ego page. Hand on heart this is for MY use and is an effort to keep track of my “presence” on the internet (there must be a better term for it).

It did, however, remind me of something I once wrote:

Simplest piece of advice that I was given by a former boss can be easily applied to ANY blog.

“Re-read before you publish.”

Electronic text can expose unintended meaning easily and it will also make what you say a lot more focused. If nothing else, it should help you catch spelling mistakes!

The reason I mention it is that, in the past week, I’ve been following some heated debates on a variety of topics: Terri Schiavo, WordPress, and Diversity in Blogging. Obviously a lot of emotion is involved in these but one thing always makes me shudder.

Bad spelling.

Granted I’m not the best advocate in the world but if you are going to join in a very public debate, knowing that other people will be reading your comments, the least you should do is make sure your spelling is accurate. It takes such a shine off* what people have to say when you are confronted by basic things like “your” instead of “you’re” for example (the ears of my English teacher, Mrs. Rankin, have just burst into flame. I was in first year and I just couldn’t “get” your/you’re or there/their/they’re – I wonder what she’d think of my bastardised English now).

I’m not going to point out any specifics as that would very VERY much be a case of pot > kettle > black, but well it’s been bugging me and I just thought I’d mention it.

P.S. This post is in no way whatsoever an attempt to stall on the mountain of work I have on my desk or the aforementioned draft post I can’t seem to finish. It is, absolutely and most certainly NOT an excellent example of avoidance technique.

* never one to disappoint my audience I left in a deliberate spelling mistake to see if anyone would catch it… er.. honest..