I was having such a good time. After checking sales for the fourteenth time in fourteen days, I sat there basking in the glow of reviews for our iPhone app, San Francisco Restaurants.
“Marvelous,” said the first reviewer.
“Just what I need,” said the second.
“Finally, an honest account,” said the third; in truth, another writer and friend.
I should have stopped while I was ahead. But no, I had to read just one more.
“What a lazy little app,” Poison Girl announced to the world. “You're better off saving your money and sticking with Yelp.”
I'm not sure of her precise pseudonym or her exact quote. I've never been able to force myself to go back for a second look. What I am sure of is that she ruined my day, ruined my digestion and totally ruined my good mood. Though I knew better, I let Poison Girl’s venom seep into my bloodstream. Now, months later, it’s still there.
But my mood improved considerably when I came across Mark Morford’s column on SFGate, the San Francisco Chronicle’s online presence. Here's how he opens…
Hi, I find you totally offensive
Did that headline offend you? How about starting a column with a question?
Or three? Are you sure?
I'm very glad to hear it. But what about grammar? Syntax? Are you right now intently scanning this paragraph for the slightest typo or eror or miztake, ready in an instant to drop me a terse note and tell me all about it, right along with how much you cannot stand people who write long, overwrought sentences that flaunt punctuation laws and are full of delightful but somehow also infuriating adjectival clauses and/or split infinitives that leave you breathless and gasping for meaning and totally annoyed because, Jesus Christ, who the hell told me it was OK to write like this or that anyone in the miserable godforsaken Obamafied world would, for that matter, want to read it?
I would not be surprised if you were. Offended, that is. To be so is, apparently, the latest craze. It is what we do best. It is who we have become. In fact, for millions, to not be offended by every little interpersonal glitch, intellectual speed bump or global policy shift now appears to be the exception to the way we routinely navigate the hellbound world.
You can read the whole entertaining, familiar, reassuring thing at
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2009/12/23/notes122309.DTL
Maybe it will brighten your mood, too.
jules
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