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Real friends tell friends when their fly is down |
Please tell me when
my fly is down. I know it’s awkward (for both of us), but try to remember that
discovering that kind of faux pas is even more embarrassing
when it’s too late (and you know when that is).
I feel the same way
about making typos and grammatical errors . . . like a couple Sundays ago when I
misspelled a word while I was teaching.
When I was erasing the chalkboard after class, I noticed my error. What^ How could everyone sit through the entire class and not say anything? Don’t they know that even misplaced commas wake me up in the middle of the night? Don’t they know I’m OCD when it comes to writing?
Too late. No one had said a thing, and I don’t believe for a second it was because every single person was engrossed in my lesson. In fact, I guarantee at least one person was utterly distracted. (I know I would have been.) I’m sure they were all trying to be polite, but it just made me feel stupid for not catching it myself.
When I was erasing the chalkboard after class, I noticed my error. What^ How could everyone sit through the entire class and not say anything? Don’t they know that even misplaced commas wake me up in the middle of the night? Don’t they know I’m OCD when it comes to writing?
Too late. No one had said a thing, and I don’t believe for a second it was because every single person was engrossed in my lesson. In fact, I guarantee at least one person was utterly distracted. (I know I would have been.) I’m sure they were all trying to be polite, but it just made me feel stupid for not catching it myself.
If you’re my friend, you’ll know I try hard to not make writing mistakes, but it’s bound to happen
every now and then. So, if you’re a true friend, do me a favor and tell me when
I’ve messed up. You would tell me if my fly was down, wouldn’t you? Then please
tell me (email me, call me, text me—somehow contact me!) if you find an error
in my writing.
If I noticed a misspelled word...I wouldn't say anything. My thought would be...this poor teacher, spending her free time putting together a lesson, she doesn't deserve a class of students calling her on her spelling mistakes. And what does that say about me...I worry about unimportant things...while my teacher is trying to get her point across! But, if your fly was down, I would tell you! :-)
ReplyDeleteBut, Jenny, that's the kind of error that DOES matter to ME. I would be--and often am--relieved to have someone point out an error. In other words, I would prefer correction to sympathy. Remember how you said you hate making errors on Facebook and you sometimes go back and try to correct them in another Comment? In my opinion, fixing an error just acknowledges a mistake and lets everyone go forward undistracted.
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ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of when one of my religion professors was teaching our class at BYU. His chin began to spontaneously bleed. We all sat and watched the blood collect into a drip heavy enough to run down his chin until it was about to drop off onto his shirt. Finally, one of the students pointed it out. "Well, now I know who my TRUE friends are!" he said in accusation as he staunched the blood. It turns out he had a vein near the surface of his skin that he would occasionally nick while shaving.
ReplyDeleteWhy we didn't tell him right away, I don't know. But you can bet we were NOT thinking about his lesson at that point. . .and by the way, I never point out teachers' misspellings. But if they ASK how to spell something, I'll offer my input every time. I figure you probably know how to spell it the right way, but there’s something about a chalkboard that throws you off. . .
Perhaps appropriate correction partially depends on the setting. For example, when you were teaching English classes, did you feel more compelled to spell correctly than you might feel in, say, a church class? Then there are the students. Some may be more distracted by a tasteless outfit or an eye twitch than by misspelled words. In the case of dripping blood, I'm not surprised that ALL students were thrown off.
ReplyDeleteDid I not post a comment on this post! Weird...must not have posted! Anyway, I am usually not one to point out a mistake...of a teacher. I figure they were in a rush and know how to spell and would just be annoying if I pointed it out. Or maybe annoying isn't the right word, but unnecessary. Though that's not the right word either since most teachers I would assume would change their mistake. So maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, what's your opinion on "...". Or their overusage? And is overusage a word because my browser is telling me it is not.