Amidst the seemingly endless e-mails attacking spelling and grammar errors was an e-mail telling me that my Thanksgiving Day commentary on the Wednesday night ratings was unconscionable and that I shouldn't use the site as a place to showcase my hatred of Rosie O'Donnell.
I do not hate Rosie and trust me, some of the e-mails about the grammar and spelling errors annoy me much more than Rosie ever could. For the record, I don't mind people who point out the mistakes. But the people who explain the mistakes to you as if you honestly didn't know the difference between you're and your and there, their and they're are freaking annoying!
I can swear up and down that I definitely know the difference between no and know, but this knowledge does not always transfer to my fingers when they are typing. I screw up are and our all the time when typing, too. Don't even get me started on all the errors I make with apostrophes. Despite this, I do know the difference between the use of the apostrophe for possessive nouns and contractions. But that doesn't always stop me from making something possessive when it merely should've been plural. I'm not doing this to annoy you, I promise. I don't have a problem with it annoying people. We all have our pet peeves. Mine is seeing definitely spelled definately. I never e-mail anyone about it though.
I'll cop to being lazy with editing - but primarily that is because most of the time we're generating a lot of posts, with a lot of data. I do more of the prose-y writing on the site, but like Bill, I'm far more obsessed with focusing on making sure the numbers are correct - and we both still wind up screwing that up from time to time. We can't justify hiring an editor at this point, and I'm not likely to change much, so if my writing annoys you my advice is just to ignore it completely!
Most of the posts here separate the prose from the numbers allowing you to easily jump right to the numbers and skip the prose altogether. We know many do exactly that because we'll often get comments asking questions about the numbers that were actually already answered in the text of the post. But as frustrating as that sometimes is, it's not nearly as annoying for me as receiving a primer on the possessive apostrophe.
Back to Rosie O'Donnell. It's not any more unconscionable to trash Rosie O'Donnell's ratings for Rosie Live than it is to comment on any other ratings. I'm neither a Rosie lover or a Rosie hater. Like most of the seven billion people on the planet, I just don't really care either way. I'm old, so I remember Rosie back from playing Nell Carter's neighbor on Gimme a Break. I liked her as a stand-up comic and I thought she was very good as the host for Stand-up Spotlight on VH1. But that was 20 years ago. Her talk show, her time on The View - I didn't really follow that. Her political leanings? I couldn't care less. The same e-mail saying I was unconscionable for picking on the ratings for Rosie Live suggested that I hate lesbians.
Yep, if you see low ratings numbers and point them out, you must hate lesbians! Besides everyone knows that everybody who hates the gay community decides to move to San Francisco and live there for ten years simply because it's the thing to do.
I don't judge people on their sexual preferences. Whether you're homosexual, heterosexual or completely asexual, if the Christmas lights are up on your house before the sun sets on Thanksgiving, I'm going to judge you harshly (unless you're among those who just leave your Christmas lights up all year, then it's OK!).
Was it unconscionable that I neglected to mention that president elect Barack Obama and his wife were on the Barbara Walters Special and that was why it rated so high? It wasn't unconscionable, bad form, for sure, but the thing is Barbara Walters typically lines up guests who DO have some wide appeal and the specials generally perform well in the ratings. That's not a new trend that came into place because she had Obama on. I'm sure she's trying to get Sarah Palin for one too - pure ratings gold.
What's unconscionable is letting someone program a primetime broadcast network program to their tastes even when it doesn't make any sense. I caught wind of the Rosie Live announcement mostly because I saw a story that went on and on about Liza Minnelli and how she would be a guest star. My thought at the time was WTF!? That's a good move for 1978, not 2008. I don't have any problem at all with Rosie (or anyone else) adoring Minnelli, but it was obvious that wasn't going to be a good ratings ploy. If you're bothering to have a show on broadcast primetime, personally, I think it's a good idea to be a little conscious about trying to get good ratings. Disclaimer: this is a site that focuses on ratings - particularly for broadcast primetime shows. I could be a bit biased.
But my reasoning isn't biased at all. You just can't program primetime purely based on personal tastes. It's just dumb. If Ben Silverman threw some money at me and said, "Give me 120 minutes of programming, do whatever you want," that's easy for me. I'm going to line up an interview with Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodger great Sandy Koufax. For me, he's among the iconic sports heroes of my youth. I was too young to truly appreciate his greatness (when he played his last game I was four years old). But he had three sub 2.00 ERA seasons after I was born and his greatness was not lost on me.
If I am programming to taste: it's a retrospective of Koufax's career and an interview. I don't imagine I admire Koufax any more than O'Donnell admires Minnelli. But the difference is, I have the sense to know that you don't stick the Koufax interview on broadcast primetime. ESPN, maybe even ESPN2 or ESPN classic - but not broadcast primetime.
Why networks are sometimes willing to take flyers on things that are pretty obviously not going to work remains a mystery. Sometimes I do get it. Especially during the writer's strike NBC's one night experiment with Quarterlife in primetime made sense (as did yanking it after one night). But Rosie Live? Especially once O'Donnell was telling you her plans for Liza Minnelli? Sorry, I don't get it. The reason I don't get it isn't because I hate Rosie, or NBC, or lesbians, or Liza Minnelli.
The reason I don't get it is because the idea never made any sense.
LOL! who goes out of their way to write an email about spelling: and even if robert did attack Rosie he’d be intitled to his opinion: Freedom of Speech. So those of you who did actaully email someone about their opinion: please think about it…
dude… people really must have given you some nasty emails because that’s quite a detailed description of your feelings for rosie o’donnell.
on my end… i really like rosie but i’m all for trashing that show. my friend has it dvr’d and i can’t wait to see it. it sounds just awful.
(fyi: she knows it… i read comments from her and she admits it didn’t work out, a lot of things didn’t work and life goes on)
i agree that her choices for guests was odd and that you should program for the mass audience with a touch of something that they are less familiar with. i don’t know about unconscionable though? that word might be a little harsh.
barbra wawa would never have gotten 11 million without barak. more like 6 if it were a regular wawa special. her numbers have not been great the last few years. if rosie had barak singing my way with hillary it would have done better in the ratings.
but i do find it a little hard to believe that you have absolutely no feelings one way or the other of her political leanings. unless you are completely numb and unpolitical yourself… i would think anyone’s political beliefs from one side or the other would generate some sort of feelings within you… not a big deal though.
enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend
Tom, first of all, Barbara Walters’ ratings have done just fine even in recent years. Second, it is quite easy not to care about Rosie’s political leanings. I’m very political minded and tend toward the same lines Rosie does, but I don’t care at all about what her politics are. She’s an entertainer. I don’t care what entertainers have to say about politics. If they want to make a big deal out of it, fine, but I’m going to ignore them.
She’s a bitch of a bull-dyke who gives bitchy bull dykes a bad name. That’s why nobody watched. Rosie who? Good riddance.
After writing on the site for more than a year, I have renewed respect for editors!
And I get very few emails about my minor copy mistakes, yet I am certain that I make as many or more than Robert does. Perhaps folks see Robert as approachable and correctable and me as hopeless
Rosie is annoying, and shouldn’t be allowed back on television. The fact that she’s a lesbian should be irrelevant on this site, as it has nothing to do with the ratings.
An effective way to avoid emails about spelling would be to spell things correctly.
Well, when I see misuses of its and it’s, for example, I think it’s very logical to assume the writer doesn’t know the difference between the two. Someone who does know the difference usually won’t make that mistake. And trust me, plenty of people genuinely DON’T know the correct versions. Probably whoever wrote to you was trying to be helpful. Mistakes of that nature do make the site seem less professional and might make visitors think it’s less accurate in other areas as well. Damages your credibility.
That said, what was the tone of the correcting email(s)? Flaming, calling you an idiot for making mistakes? Or polite, gently pointing out the errors and telling you the proper versions? I don’t see anything wrong with the latter. When you post material online, receiving corrections just goes with the territory. I’m always pleased to get concrit rather than flames.
(My “definitely” pet peeve is seeing it mistyped as “defiantly” rather than just “definately”–I run into this issue more often than you might think.)
As for Rosie, I like her okay but what I saw of her live show sucked. Her daytime show was good, though.
Lisa, where we disagree is that I don’t think it’s at all logical to assume that because mistakes are made the person making the mistakes doesn’t know the difference. If someone spells definitely as “defiantly” every time, it’s probably logical to assume they don’t know how to spell definitely. But with its, it’s, are, our, know, no, there, they’re, their, too, two, to, — it’s just an issue with how the brain works (or doesn’t). It’s mostly the same for one-off incorrect usage of words, punctuation, etc., so I don’t think it’s logical to draw any conclusions other than a mistake was made!
There are lots of studies on that sort of thing, but unless you’re into the way neurons fire in the brain, you probably won’t find them very interesting.
The e-mails range from well intended and not at all pompous, to well intended but still completely pompous (in my opinion), to complete flaming. I see corrections with explanations on the correct usage of it’s vs. its as completely pompous since I definitely know the difference.
It’s fair to assume I don’t spend much time editing myself and if someone wants to flame me about that I’m *completely* fine with it. Beyond that, I view making any other assumptions as being in the realm of “pompous douchebag” and I am typically not shy about letting e-mailers know that!
I mistake “like” and “think” all the time, no clue why, just the way it goes.
Wow! Some people suck, huh?
Well I really enjoy this website. And I really enjoyed that editorial.
Too bad people seem to take this site for granted. You guys are ruthlessly efficient and often quite insightful.
Lisa’s wrong, no offense, it’s not correct to assume if someone makes a spelling error that they don’t know any better. I type fast, my brain works faster, those mistakes happen.
Good for you for calling your readers on their pompous douchebaggery. It’s a TV news and ratings analysis site not an English lesson — leave it alone.
And that’s that.
Oh yeah and…
I thought you deserved to take Thanksgiving off.
In fact I was relieved to see that there was nothing to read, so I could get the encouragement to get off the computer and on with my LIFE.
One could almost come to the conclusion that the live special was part of the deal to get her off The View before she killed it with insanity.
Sorry, Rosie. Fire does melt steel.
Rosie sucks now anyway.
There are actually people who email to tell you that you made grammatical mistakes? How ridiculous is that?
I like Rosie a lot. But it’s true that the lineup she chose for her show was just awful. She had no musicians I cared about seeing, or comedians for that matter. I DVR’d it to watch sometime since it’s Rosie, but I’m not too eager.
Josh-I was not referring to the occasional typo, which happens to everyone and is completely understandable. I certainly didn’t mean that every person who ever makes a single spelling or grammar error doesn’t know the correct version. I was talking about people who usually get things like it’s/its mixed up, like 9 out of 10 times. Either they don’t know the right version (which a lot of people don’t) or they’re extremely careless (if so, it’s best if they learn to take more care).
But what strikes me is, who in the world is even sending emails with spelling/grammar corrections for this site? It’s not like the place is overrun with errors. I’ve seen one here and there, sure, but nowhere near enough for it to be a real issue for me. Of course, JMHO. Seems like it bothers the emailers more than it does me. It would be interesting to hear their viewpoints.
Lisa, my inbox isn’t really overflowing with those kind of e-mails. But on Thanskgiving morning I got four e-mails of that variety within an hour and it just hit me in a total “WTF!?” fashion.
I don’t know that I agree that screwing it up more than occasionally means I don’t know the right version or am extremely careless. One mistake I make regularly is stuff like typing “The Simpson’s” instead of correctly typing it “The Simpsons”. I do know the difference, and I don’t chalk typing it that way up to extreme carelessness. I chalk not *editing* it up to carelessness, but I’m not sure how extreme of an infraction it is. To me, it’s not that extreme. My tolerance for that sort of thing is fairly high as long as I get the numbers for The Simpsons correct.
There are at least a few people who find such a mistake unbearable seemingly to the point of it being excruciating for them.
Mr. Seidman, I had a tremendous amount of respect for you before you wrote this article and I have so much more respect for you after this article. Your ability to see things from such a level-headed point of view is much needed on the internet and always so refreshing to read. There’s nothing more asinine than the internet grammar police who read an article solely searching for spelling and English errors. To expect correct English all the time when there are no implicit rules of language in most internet chat areas is unreasonable. Most internet speech consists of syntax composed of abbreviations, initials, numbers, symbols, and/or any combination of the four. Quite often when people speak I don’t know what they are talking about because they use symbolic language such as WTH (followed by a question mark), LMAO, LOL, ROTF, etc., but it’s presumed by the person writing the comment that the reader will know what’s being said. Sometimes I know and sometimes I have to ask others or try to figure it out on my own, but never would I waste my valuable time on correcting someone’s internet language when I’m really interested in whether the person has any coherent thoughts or valuable knowledge to share with the world.
As for your Rosie Live comments, they were spot on. I enjoyed the Rosie O’Donnell show and the few times I saw ‘The View’ when she was on it, I enjoyed as well. From my recollection of those few episodes, she basically was the only woman who took a stand against all the biased reporting and false doctrine that Elisabeth Hasselbeck was spewing out on a daily basis. I will always respect Rosie for that stand. However, the ‘Rosie Live’ show was an absolute embarrassment. It was worst than those grade school talent shows that feature kids performing ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ on their recorders, followed by the prinicpal and some teachers doing a skit about just saying no to drugs- a weird combination of awful and hilarious. Me and my lady sat in front of the tv too stunned to even turn once it had ended. I remember saying to her that this show will go down in history as one of the worst events ever aired on network tv. I was even hoping that maybe it would be just bad enough that people would take it as a joke and she would get a do-over. Then I came to my senses and realized that I would never even dare watch something that insanely bad again.
You’ve GOT to be kidding me. Elisabeth’s the only real conservative among a slew of liberals on that show, and Rosie is the brave hero who dared to restrain her? Pfft! That’s like saying that Chris Matthews (to pick just one at random) was the only reporter to take a stand for Barack Obama.
Rosie was once an entertainer who spoke her political mind and proved that she is really an idiot. Now she can’t even entertain because in her mind all the little people both understand and care about her opinions. So Wrong. She is just a fat ugly be-otch.