In the interest of full disclosure; or, I am a bad person.

When people post things on the internet and spell words incorrectly (especially common words like "there" vs. "their" or "they're"), I judge them.

When people post things on the internet and either blatantly misuse or eliminate punctuation altogether, I judge them.

When people post things on the internet and forgo capitalization completely, I judge them.

When people post things on the internet without proofreading, resulting in a mangled jumble of what I can only guess was supposed to be English, I judge them.

In short: I judge people for not proofreading. Seeing a post that demonstrates a less-than-minimum competency for the English language makes me jump to conclusions about the education or intelligence of the poster. And that is bad. Because I am a bad person.

But I am also an English major, an editor and a writer, and I just can't help it.

So now you know.


P.S. In the interest of further disclosure, if you are a person I know and love and make one of the above errors, I still love you and make excuses for you. If it's someone I don't know, though, their reputation sinks drastically in my estimation. Yes, it's biased and unfair. I still do it. (See supra, "I am a bad person.")