An Interesting Look At Blog Readers

By: Chelsea A. Reid

Recently I wrote my first blog for Salisbury News. I was excited to know that Mr. Albero was willing to show it on his site in order to see the response. Now I am worried I will never be able to write for him again, since the response was less than flattering. I don’t believe it was because of the content. I received praise, valuable insight, corrections (of which I found extremely insightful and helpful), and in general a nice start to a good discussion. What went wrong was what I also got. A few were more concerned with my writing abilities and use of grammar than for the actual content of my piece. Each of those comments was hurtful to me, as I had tried very hard to make a good impression.

I am not expecting to think that no one out of the many readers there are to not make a comment on my grammar, word usage, punctuation, and general style of writing. I know it is atrocious, and I have had to deal with it my entire life. I have dyslexia, to the point where it affects my reading and writing abilities. Now I have learned to compensate for the most part. I can read at a level above and beyond what any doctor would expect of me, my spelling has improved over the years, and the same for punctuation. But I still make mistakes. Even when I use spell check and everything turns out fine, I will make a mistake. Because my brain doesn’t catch it, and when I am writing something, I typically write exactly as I speak, which says a lot about my speaking abilities.

I can’t expect someone who doesn’t know me and has never even heard of me before to know this. But I thought I could expect less hurtful, demeaning comments and more commentary on the subject being written. I wanted (and still do want) to open a dialogue between those that read and comment on this blog as members of the Salisbury community, and students at their local University, as I feel I had a sense of being an outsider during my time here, unknowing of the ways of this city, looking in to an interesting, intelligent community of people with valid opinions and a sense of friendly debate. I didn’t want to start a war against grammar-Nazis and myself. I have apparently failed miserably at my goal, but I am here now to try again. Let’s start off on the right foot shall we? Maybe you should know something about me before railing against my misuses of “their” and “there”.

I’m Chelsea. I’m a double major at SU in education (I can hear the sarcastic comments about this forming in certain reader’s heads now) and Theatre. I enjoy animals, eating fresh vegetables, dancing, good natured jokes, church, and a whole lot more. I like to think I know a lot about you all as a group too. You all are up to date on current events, both National and Local. Most of you hate former Mayor Tilghman for reasons I have gathered from reading the archives of the blog. Sarcasm and generally witty, if not sometimes cynical, humor is your strong suit. Nature, strong morals, and good values seem to be all things you praise. But some of you just like to hate. I went back and read comments from my first piece over and over again. I found similar comments in other articles over the weeks as well, typically attacking a person who said an opinion someone else doesn’t agree with. And I have started to notice, it seems to be coming from the same small group of people. Same style of poorly thought out insults, same reasons for always posting rude comments.

I’m not here to whine and complain about a few people who were mean. I know the world is not all kittens, rainbows and sunshine, and that people can be obnoxious, cruel, and in general distasteful human beings to associate with. But I would like to stay on as an occasional observer who submits sometimes poorly written works if you all will let me. I may not be from Salisbury originally, but I pick things up quickly. I know all about the recent Mayoral election. Hell I even voted for Ireton, after reviewing the issues. I know about the budget crisis, the crime rate being hushed up by a hopefully soon-to-be outgoing administration. I want to contribute if you’ll let me. And I may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but teach me something new. Be like one commenter I had and explain things to me. Explain how the court system really works when I confuse terms. Explain to me what would be the right way of putting things on paper. But don’t insult me. My brain may not be all up to speed sometimes, but I am not stupid.

So let’s start over. I want to extend an olive branch. What would YOU like to have me write about? It can be anything at all. I’ll write about what’s going on in various student neighborhoods, what is going on campus, or the weird, wacky, and sometimes unbelievable things I see as a student at SU. Let me know and it will be done to the best of my ability. All I ask is to keep the grammar comments out of it. Please?