Instapundit had linked to an article written by Michael Walsh. Overall, I liked the article, but I nitpicked a bit. In a comment at Instapundit, I wrote:
In other words, the federal government did not create the states, they created the federal government.
Nice sentiment, and true, but you suck all the dignity out of it when you commit the sin of a comma splice. Second comma should rightly be a semicolon separating two independent clauses. I realize I get no points for making custodial comments like this (the standard accusation is that my comment "misses the point"), but I hate to see people make themselves look dumb.
Walsh's sentence is in italics. Walsh got incensed, apparently, and he proved he trolls the Instapundit comments section to look for reactions. He replied:
I'm a far better writer than you, so save your grammatical ignorance for others. Thanks.
I love it. "Grammatical ignorance." The man doesn't know me very well. He also betrays his own "grammatical ignorance" if he seriously thinks he did nothing wrong.
And he really needs to master commas. (I'll grant that he used a comma correctly in his reply. That is a truly impressive feat. Maybe he really is a far better writer.)
Wow! He really sounds like a douche. I always appreciate your grammar and punctuation lessons. I'm happy to serve as a bad example and willing to try and do better, even though I invariably fail.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've ever seen such an insecure flare-up before. If the guy's such a great writer, why's he still making such basic mistakes? Anyway, I found his reaction hilarious, so I had to share.
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