Aaron Adams’s Blowhard Blog

Here is a great example of what I complained about in the last article:

The headline ends with ?, which, as we all know, immediately makes any sentence or sentence fragment a question whether an interrogative word is included or not, and then the first sentence immediately confirms what, just a few words ago, was supposed to be a question in the headline.

Why does this get such a strong reaction from me? Because I consider a certain minimum level of writing aptitude to be good manners for your readership, and writing grammatically deficient, logically inconsistent pages like this is roughly the equivalent of farting in a crowded elevator. I strongly believe that writing is a direct reflection of the mind, and when writing is poorly structured and self-contradictory, it reveals thinking processes with the same problem. Please give credit to my intelligence, and cause me to respect yours, by writing well.

And now for the standard disclaimer: I’m not a perfect writer, nor do I claim to be. I correct my mistakes. My writing mistakes do not excuse the mistakes of others, nor do they diminish my right (duty?) to critique others’ writing. Perfect or not, I’m a damn sight better than the example here.