My gripe this morning is going to be about how it is deemed cool to use bad grammar. We all know bureaucrats are too busy shuffling mind-numbing paperwork to proofread, so we’re used to those word processing errors that, in local legislation, we pray nobody will take literally at some future date. Now, the practice is the in-thing on candidate web sites. This I found last night while attempting to begin to learn about the sixteen candidates running for Asheville City Council.
I wasn’t proofreading. I was merely scanning for how these cats wanted to force their utopias.
I suppose multiple studies by scientists have proved a smattering of bad English has plain-folks appeal, but if I, as the dullest Crayon in the box, can find about three glaring grammatical errors on just about every candidate’s page, to whom, exactly, is this feigned display of carelessness appealing? I kind of take it to mean, “Hey, if I’m too cool to spend a couple minutes proofing my own web site, do you think I’ll be reading my staff reports?”
As an aside, to date I have only found one conservative candidate’s page, and it is buried in the search engine results. Further reinforcing the stereotype about general thought processes being as muddled as the syntax, this candidate’s English was as well-considered as his positions.
