Just not write

So it took indignation over atrocities committed against the English language to jar me out of blogging hibernation, which reassures me that the grammar Nazi in me is alive and well (and mad as hell).

During a rare slow day at work, I was searching online for restaurant recommendations, and I came across a review of a French restaurant, written by a very prominent Pinoy blogger. My friend Yang has jokingly dubbed this particular blogger my "favorite" because every time I read his posts, I get a migraine from his terrible grammar. In this instance, a line from his review goes, "the men's restroom is a bit cramp". And if you think that's just a typo, I'd like to point out that this is from the same guy who thinks "heartthrob" is spelled "heart rob". Seriously.

Skimming over the rest of my favorite blogger's recent posts (skimming is less painful as I don't spot ALL his glaring grammatical errors), I also glimpsed the title, "8 Most Admired and Upcoming Filipina Bloggers". Um, I believe it's "up AND coming", genius. It really rankles me how someone with such a deficient vocabulary and deplorable writing skills can be considered one of the best bloggers in our country. Are our literacy standards really that low? And am I the only one who notices his writing sucks? It's depressing.

To compound my frustration, the same day I was warding off an "upcoming" migraine, a former student of mine sent me a message over YM for a quick grammar check. She wanted to verify that the following sentence was off: "___ is not on Facebook for a couple of years." I told her that the grammar was indeed incorrect, and being familiar with her above-par English proficiency, I asked her who wrote the flawed line. To my surprise, she named a common acquaintance who used to teach English at an elite academic institution. My response was the emoticon :-|, I didn't have the words to express my incredulous exasperation.

I know I can be a snob when it comes to people's use (and abuse) of English, but dammit, if your profession is writing, or teaching the language for crying out loud, then I sure as hell am going to expect correct grammar and spelling from you. The occasional lapse is forgivable. But consistently churning out poorly constructed pieces and feeding them to an already linguistically handicapped public? Not Awesome. Oops, I mean, not cool.