What grinds my gears is "acceptable poor grammar" on web forums, blogs and chats and that you cannot call people on it!
For example, if someone does not use "there", "they're" or "their" appropriately and someone else calls them on it, why is the person who pointed it out a grammar nazi and the person who typed it incorrectly not a moron?
What we are basically saying is that if two people are arguing about a difference of opinion, they can go back and forth for minutes, hours or days. They can ridicule each others opinions and beliefs but the moment one of them calls the other one out for "speaking" incorrectly...whoa, look out!!
After all, if your going to get upset with me about pointing out you’re mistakes then how is that my fault?
Oh, God Nooooooooooooo. It seems that grammar police are hated and despised everywhere you go. Tread carefully, this is a battle you aint a gonna win.
Trust me on this. Pointing out a posters poor writing just leads to banning and arguments and thread closures. Those of us that know about the problem are smart enough to avoid mentioning it. Keep in mind that if you do, you must forever be vigilant and avoid errors in your own posts or you will be called out.
For example, in your post, you did not capitalize the ‘N’ in “nazi.” Smiley.
For all you know, a poster might be struggling with English because it is their second language. Some people simply have trouble writing and many of those people are educated. When Winston Churchill was once criticized for ending a sentence in a preposition, he responded, "That is the kind of thing up with which I will not put." Is he providing further examples of his “bad writing” or perhaps an example of his brilliance?
If you want to read bad writing, join a few professional writer groups. If you post a query about the proper and improper use of a semi-colon, you will get answers that do not agree with the “accepted” use. If you ask about sentence structure, (you post an example) you will get arguments aplenty and no resolution. Quite often, I will encounter third grade writing and hillbilly spelling in poorly composed posts from working professional writers that you would think should know better.
Even ending a sentence with a preposition is argued endlessly by those that say NO! And those that say it is ok. No resolution and agreement amongst the pros that are paid real dollars for their crappy writing.
This is not professional writing we are talking about, it is a telephone forum populated by folks from all walks of life looking for answers. They do not want to be told they misused a particular word. Writing is designed to communicate ideas and if those ideas get across, their “poor” writing skills should not be pointed out.
You can occasionally judge a poster by his or her post. What you cannot do is publicly judge a person by his or her post. I am a freelance technical writer and I will be the first to admit my failings as far as forum posts go. I try to write well in public but until AF pays me so much per word or meets my hourly quote, I will continue to use bad English as well as far too many (improper) semi-colons, passive sentences, and other things that send chills up and down the collective spines of English teachers.
I will continue to make those egregious errors you seem to dislike.