now, i swear to you that i'm not one of those assholes who goes around publicly shaming others for their failure to pay tribute to the Grammar Gods. i'm just as bad as everyone else is; my speech and writing occasionally allows errors and snafus to creep in. but this is a problem that a TON of people have - and, if everyone has the same problem, is it really a problem? well, maybe, maybe not. but it's certainly not enough of an issue to me that i feel compelled to call out someone in conversation or on Facebook for not following all the conventions of Standard Edited American English. in the everyday world, it's just not that big of a deal.
but in criticism... those stupid mistakes and fuck-ups you make will just kill you. i'm not sure if there are any studies done on how proper use of language affects the way a written message is received, but i can tell you this: nine times out of ten, if i see someone trying to make a point on the internet with shitty grammar or spelling, i'm going to approach their opinion with
am i an asshole? oh, no question. but, believe me, it's true on a subconscious level. when i read poorly written and unedited reviews, i get almost completely distracted from the main points the reviewer's making. hell, oftentimes i can't even remember what they were reviewing. that's a serious problem. thankfully, though, it also works the opposite way. think back to a sentence you read from a book or newspaper, if you can recall it exactly. your mind is far more likely to jump to a sentence that's well-organized and concise, neither of which are qualities of error-riddled, messy text globs.
now, larger critical outlets (Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, A.V. Club, &c.) have teams of editors who can pick out all the grammar and spelling mistakes the reviewer may have made. that's perfectly understandable: they need to have everything looking professional. but think about that word for a second. does that mean any old schlub with half an opinion and a working computer can write a professional review, and just let the editors do all the fixing? of course not. the editors may have the ability to fix your stupid-ass errors, but professional-quality capital-C critics aren't going to need that kind of help. maybe their reviews will need to be trimmed, or a paragraph or two switched around, but they certainly shouldn't need rudimentary usage work.
the unfortunate truth of the whole thing is that formal criticism is becoming a lost art. the phrase "everyone's a critic" may be worn to the bone, but, in some sense, it's now more true than ever. people will start blogs like this one, or become the reviewer for their local or school newspaper, or even write quick blurbs on Amazon, and just charge right into it without any regard for these rules. true, they may never become explicitly "professional" critics. but, in the eyes of the great and powerful Internet, all men are equal. when anyone has the ability to log onto a social-networking site, click on an empty text box, and speak his or her mind, the opinion of someone like Robert Christgau or Sasha Frere-Jones matters as much (or as little) as that of CoolGuy_267.
so, what can we, as critics, do about this? well, we can spend a whole paragraph complaining about it, as i've just done. or, we can get on our asses - at our computers - and do something about it.
now, i may not be a professional critic. (i'm not even really an authority on criticism. nobody reads this blog. i have no illusions about that.) but i would like to be one, mind you. and with this goal in mind, i make sure that every sentence in every review i write is logical, concise, and correct. what if every reviewer did this? shit, criticism would be saved (sort of). that ranting, sad, bitter paragraph wouldn't even need to exist. but not every reviewer does that. and some perfectly good reviewers who have a lot of potential are hammering the nails into their own coffins with every i left undotted, every t left uncrossed, every simple and manageable error left unaltered.
so please, you guys: for the love of God, fix your grammar and usage and spelling and punctuation and organization and vocabulary and whatever the hell else you need to fix. if you want to be a true critic, or even want people to give your opinion a chance, you must communicate as effectively as you can. (and if you can't get through a paragraph without some serious outside editing help, you might want to consider a different career path.) if we all work at it, and take small steps to make our reviews look better, more polished, more readable, more professional, we just might get through to somebody. and that's what's important.
