January 13, 2013

"I was reckless writing about recklessness."

I say, noting that I got quoted over at Instapundit with a missing "it's" apostrophe: "he’s entirely reckless about what these laws would really mean to ordinary people, and its a recklessness that thrives in the mind of someone who...."

"Oh! It's blogging," says Meade. "It's the internet. Think how many times you've gotten it right."

"And it's more embarrassing to get the apostrophe wrong the other way," I soothe myself, referring to  putting the apostrophe in "its" when it's supposed to be out.

"It's embarrassing to be embarrassed," Meade asserts aphoristically.

"But I was criticizing recklessness at the very point when I was reckless," I brood nonetheless. "It's like the way whenever you mock a misspelling, you end up misspelling something."

I decide to write this post, which — speaking of blogging — is the antidote to embarrassment.

***

On the rooftops they dance
Valentino-type tangos
While the makeup man’s hands
Shut the eyes of the dead
Not to embarrass anyone
The sky is embarrassed
And I must be gone 

24 comments:

Rick said...

Excellent. It's good to know that some people still care.

Fritz said...

You could just have called it irony.

rhhardin said...

Belmont club is careful enough to get every it's vs its choice backwards.

Mogget said...

Althouse is human. Who knew? ;)

rhhardin said...

The mnemonic is that you don't type possessive her's so don't type possessive it's. Then it turns out that people do type her's.

McTriumph said...


I prefer to ignore proper punctuation or speling as it more represents my thinking sloppy ;-)

pm317 said...

Shame on you, Althouse!

This brings back memories..As a grad TA teaching a class, I had to argue what is right (and I was right), it's or its given the context we were arguing about, with a smart aleck student.

Anonymous said...

Ah, we see glimpses of the attention to detail - shall we even say perfectionism? - that drove the girl to such accomplishments.

Where is the "Althouse like human" tag?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

You, a law professor.

Tim said...

The Internet wouldn't be the Internet without misspellings, bad grammar, conspiracy theories, pop-ups, flame wars and porn.

Or so they say.

Shouting Thomas said...

Apostrophes are more important than politics.

More interesting, too, when you think about it.

Lyle said...

Never mock bad spelling?

Ann Althouse said...

Of course, I know the correct rule. The problem in typing is that homophones pop out of your fingers so easily. "To" for "too" happens more often than it doesn't. You just don't see it the first time. You have to proofread, but proofreading has its own weird perceptual distortions. Being an optimist, I see things as they should be. I can look at a typo and genuinely see what's supposed to be there.

Ann Althouse said...

"The Internet wouldn't be the Internet without misspellings, bad grammar, conspiracy theories, pop-ups, flame wars and porn."

The previous post and the next post are about pop-ups.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"Being an optimist, I see things as they should be. I can look at a typo and genuinely see what's supposed to be there."

I wonder if this is correlated in any way with dyslexia?

edutcher said...

Embarrassment always haunts one.

I would have thought a lawprof would be a little more reflexive about getting it right, but I've seen touch typists whose favorite key seems to be backspace.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Loose and lose lost me.

Anonymous said...

RE: "Being an optimist, I see things as they should be."

To the optometrist this is a life's calling.

(Are the bifocal lenses half full or half blurry?)

Wince said...

Althouse, "embarrassed" by flashing her... "its"?

It's... it's... no, no... it's.

ErnieG said...

That excuse about the number of times you've gotten it right reminded me of the old fellow who was cited for running a red light, and complained that he had never gotten proper credit for the green lights he had stopped for.

Basta! said...

"Loose" for "lose" makes me grind my teeth. I can see thinking that the -u- sound is more likely to be spelled with a double-o, but you'll never get a -z- sound out of that -oose-

Just consider the parallels: caboose, goose, hoosegow, moose, noose, papoose

tim in vermont said...

choose.

Hazy Dave said...

No time, Toulouse.

Nichevo said...

I love it when you disappear my posts. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. Don't you die a little inside, though, when you do that?