Some of My Pet Peeves

By Mike Serovey

Most of the articles that I have posted here were written by other people. This time, I'm posting some of my own thoughts. Because this is my blog, I can put what I want on it and this is my rant!

Over the past 3 or 4 years I have visited many web sites and subscribed to many newsletters. I have noticed that many of these so called gurus don't bother to proofread their web sites, newsletters, ebooks, and so on before publishing them to the world. Whenever a reader writes to these people and tells them that they are bothered by the typos the authors typically write back and make excuses for laziness! They often say things like, "I give good advice so forgive me for being human"! The most extreme case of this was when I read Carbon Copy Marketing by Mike Filsame. He had an error is spelling, grammar, or punctuation in every other sentence! When I wrote to him about this he basically stated that he wrote the ebook in about 2 days with no sleep while doing it. I have no idea what his hurry was. When I suggested that he rewrite the ebook and correct all of those errors he wrote back and said in effect that he earns more money than I do so my opinion doesn't count! Excuse me! Didn't people like I am help him to earn all of that money by buying his products? What ever happened to "The customer is always right"? I did write back to him and tell him that I have a Masters degree, so I am educated. He will alienate people with any pretense to an education if he continues to put out ebooks with typos and then make excuses for this. Personally, I would be embarrassed to put my name on anything as badly written as Carbon Copy Marketing! To make things worse, much of the advice that Mike gives is "controversial". Read that as unethical! I did ask for, and received, a refund.

In some cases, the authors speak English as a second or third language. I used to subscribe to newsletters written by people in Asia. In almost every case I unsubscribed because I was turned off by the errors in grammar and spelling. If these "gurus" are earning as much money as they claim to, then why don't they hire someone who is fluent in English to proofread their works first? Instead, they show off their ignorance of English! To me, there is no excuse for that! I can remember reading one newsletter in which the author stated, "As you are sitting on your couch next to your potato ...". Either this guy was trying to be funny or he really doesn't know what a "couch potato" is! Either way, it didn't come across very well!

I have also noticed a number of authors using the wrong spelling of words like too, here, there, know, and etc. So, I'm going to give a little spelling and grammar lesson. We have "here" as in, "He is right here". We have "there" as in, "He is over there". You hear with your ear. "They are" is contracted as they're. If it belongs to them, then it is theirs. So, the cat belonging to them is their cat! "To" is the opposite of "from". An example of this is, "I am going to the store". If you mean "also" or "as well" then you would use "too". For example, "I like reading too". If you have more of something than you want, then you have too much of it. Or, you can have too little. Note that this is spelled "too". I have seen statements like, "I no that I am wrong to misspell words like I do". It should be, "I know that ...".

Another thing that irritates me is the use of the double negative. For example, "I ain't got no use for him!". No use is what you "ain't got"! "I don't want no more ..." No more is what you don't want! Correct grammar would be, "I don't have any use for him!" or "I don't want any more ...".

So, in conclusion, you "gurus" need to either proofread your works before publishing them to the world and showing your ignorance or laziness, hire someone else to proofread your work, or continue to alienate educated people people like I am, who will usually ask for a refund after reading your poorly written works!