A Note to My Fellow Pagan Bloggers
Sunday October 12, 2008
Please, if this applies to you, accept in the spirit in which it is intended. Understand that there are many words in the Pagansphere which are similar to words in other places, and that they do have different meanings. Just a helpful hint here:
- A set of guidelines is not your tenants. Tenants are the people who live in your rental property. TENETS are guidelines.
- There is no E anywhere in "Pagan." Honest.
- That table you put your stuff on is an altar. To "alter" is to change something.
- A person who is a Wiccan practices Wicca. To the best of my knowledge "Wiccanism" is not an actual word. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on that one.
- Finally, cards used for divination are Tarot cards. A taro is a small tropical plant that looks a bit like elephant ear.
Comments
Hehe, this is something that needs to be passed around. Good work!
Priceless, Patti, absolutely priceless!
Other issues within the scope of blogging and online commentary are “there, their and they’re,” “to, too, and two,” and of course, just plain spelling and grammar mistakes. I’m not perfect, but I do try to proof read my blogs before I post them.
LMAO! That was too funny. I have tried to tell people the same thing. I want that on the Witch’s Voice. Love it!
LOL Great one!
That altar/alter thing is one of my biggest pet peeves! I was just snarking at my husband about that the other day.
How on earth can you practice a religion and not know at least the basic jargon?
I’m sure sometimes it’s a simple mistake that your spell check isn’t going to catch – but I see it over and over again. Drive me crazy.
Oh, and you need to add this one to it: I am a witch, not a which…..
Thanks for making me have a VERY GOOD LAUGH!!!! Blessed Be
Thank you!!! I was beginning to believe that maybe I was just being too critical of the way that our language has been mangled recently. BB
You go, girl!!
At first I thought this must be a “joke” entry. Then I got to thinking and, yep you are, once again right *bows down* and it’s the simple mistakes that get lost in the translation of Reality vs. Print. I too think this should be copy and pasted (with permission) in LOTS of places and kept bookmarked so that one could send it to a offender!
Rock On!
Thank God(dess)! Here I thought it was just me, being too critical!
As a Virgo, linguist & writer of things metaphysical I’m overly sensitive to this sort of thing (just ask my husband). Sadly, we can see this happening to our language in general, but I agree it is a little disconcerting and especially irksome when the goal of the writer is to educate or denounce anothers path.
Pat yourself on the back for a point well taken and tasetfully made! Blessed Bee! (oops!) haha
Heh — don’t even get me started on “Mary Meat”!
While I understand the frustration for PROFESSIONAL writers, the level of intolerance, and lack of compassion in these posts disturbs me. We each have strengths and weaknesses, celebrating anothers strengths is joyous, but mocking anothers weakness is cruel. I am one who has trouble with spelling,I have my partner help me when there is no spell-check. Please, try to feel the hurt your words may cause before writing them.
Language is how we communicate with each other. I do understand that some people have difficulty with spelling and writing, believe me, I get that. But I honestly don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect someone to learn how to spell words correctly that are a part of their religious practice.
I should add, however, that every one of the errors I mentioned above were made by bloggers I would consider far better than amateur writers, and who are clearly capable of spelling every other word correctly.
As I said, I hope everyone took this in the spirit in which it was intended, which was not to be hurtful at all, but to show that these are VERY common errors, and to point out that they don’t have to be made at all. If I type the same word wrong every time, I truly hope someone will point it out to me, so I can stop doing it.
For those of you who haven’t noticed, my personal grammatical Kryptonite is where to put the punctuation — inside or outside the quote marks? And I *am* working on improving my skillz.
patti
who almost typed her own name wrong just now
“”patti
who almost typed her own name wrong just now”"
LOL—Been there–done that!!
Wonderful points, Patti!
It’s always frustrating to read an article within which the author has repeatedly used the wrong words for an item or idea, or otherwise butchered the language. While by no means a “professional” writer myself, I take great care to make myself fully understandable within all my undertakings.
Just a quick side note, I visited the original article at the Oakland Daily Tribune concerning the student who threatened to set his teacher on fire. I was amazed at how many of the area teachers had commented on that article, and had mangled their own posts, in some cases, nearly beyond recognition. Ouch! If you’re going to teach it, at least know the subject matter first!
May I also add to this…that Wicca is not the same as Paganism. The Wiccan ‘religion’ was created in the 1950s- so where you see Paganism and Wicca lumped in together you need to be aware that one of these is thousands of years old- and the other…about fifty years. They are very different, while Wicca has borrowed heavily from and is even founded on Paganism there are some large differences.
Okay I loved the original posting and most of the responses. I have two bitchy comments though…. in the Waite tarot deck the wheel of fortune has “taro” on it (it’s scary that I remember that) and regarding Wicca & Paganism…. There is no one monolithic religion called Paganism. There have been Pagans around for thousands of years but none of us practice “original” paganism. Every pagan tradition had a beginning even if we don’t know when it was. Wicca may have begun 50 years ago but we are still pagans.
So having said that let me add Thanks for a fun & useful posting.
Good information, and a good laugh. It’s too bad that the whole political correctness wave has gone so far as to encourage *some* people to be hurt or offended at simple and friendly reminders. Is it really any more insensitive to remind people to take a little extra time and get words right when talking about a given subject than it is for poor or careless spellers to – in some eyes – disrespect a given practice or belief by either misspelling a word or using an incorrect word?
It’s always a good idea to proof-read before putting something out for all the world to see. If at all possible, if it’s something important, get a different set of eyes to check it out, because a spell-checker isn’t quite enough. For some people – my husband being one of them – this recommendation is not a ‘crewel lye’ concerning ‘there’ intelligence. It is simply an acknowledgment that ‘they’re’ talents may ‘bee’ elsewhere, and a request to have enough respect for the subject they are writing about to check spelling and grammar. It is meant with all love and respect. Bee blest!