Can We Talk 2

Reading Other Writing on the Internet

         Just some general complaints today.

         I read an article about a "homophobic" chef who made crude remarks to two ladies who told him they were each other's Valentines. Reading the woman's own account of what happened, I am led to believe that the chef was rude, crude, and fresh. He would have been those things to straight women. He was a jerk,but he was not homophobic. Phobia implies fear. Homophobes are not usually friendly or agreeable. This guy served them without problem and catered to their requests. He was probably turned on by them; maybe they were attractive to him. He made some lewd comments, which are inappropriate. So he's a DOM (dirty old man), not a homophobe. He was a man behaving badly. A homophobe would have refused to serve or would have given lousy service or have been hostile. I agree his behavior was wrong. It's the word choice that riled me.

         We toss words around too carelessly without thinking about what they mean. "Snarks" were developed years ago. Emails and texts have enabled us to be a nasty, mean spirited people, going beyond phones and computers to the general public in speech and writing. Insulting through labels seems to be the order of the day. Writers need to be very careful about word choices, especially those writing columns for magazines, papers, and e-mags.

         I also fell for an ad that made a promise. I wanted to see what they were selling. Well, it went on and on and on without specifying whether it was a book, a DVD, a supplement, or whatever to improve your health. And it was some of the worst writing I've seen.Spelling, typo's, grammar, word sense, sentence structure all suffered. If this is an example of well-paid copy writing, someone is wasting money. I scrolled all the way to the end before I found a button to go to the next screen. But I did notice his name finally--Mike something CEO. Now you know it has to be a small fly-by-night company. Hopefully, no CEO would write that badly and not have someone to edit it.

         Hint: Never fall for those ads attached to your emails or Facebook pages. They're long-winded copy writers trying to sell something that won't sell in a regular ad.