10 Commandments of Virginia Shea.

No. 10: Be forgiving of other people's mistakes.

Do you know why I can't write in Estonian? Because I am afraid of making mistakes. For me, it was always a way to show a respect to culture of interlocutor, by trying to express myself on his language. Estonian is not my native language, and I still try to use it, if I can, but sometimes I have to step back from my own rule. My English is not perfect as well, but still it is easier to use it for writing the blog. Maybe due to the fact that I convinced that mistakes in English grammar would be taken less seriously by readers. I know, that it is annoying to read the text with mistakes, but believe me, there is more destructive thing in the Net and this is correction of all your mistakes with especial accent on every mistake you did.

Such people prefer to call themselves the Good Language Lovers or Grammar Lovers, but the Net knows them as Grammar Nazi.

Who are they? The persons, who decide that they have the right to correct your mistakes in abusive manner (like calling you dumb, silly, or by any other word). The ones, who uses the grammar to show their supremacy on top of others.

If you are not belonging to this group, and help people to write in the Net correctly, by pointing on mistakes in kindly manner in personal message, like "Hey! I've noticed some mistakes and think that you could improve the text by the following corrections..." - you are free to close this topic. Thank you! Grammar is important and can be spreaded without any force.

For the other part (I don't like the naming "Grammar Nazi"), I'd like to tell that this is really important to be forgiving of other people's mistakes, as the Internet deletes our personalities. You never know your opponent or interlocutor from the first phrase. Maybe you won't know him more just because of your abusive manner to correct mistakes. How you identity the person on the other side of connection just by mistakes? Is it a small child, clever person without knowledge of your language or a person with some serious health problem there, who just can't hit right buttons, but still have to tell/write you something? Maybe he in a rush, but have something really important. Can you imagine, that due to you rude appointment on the mistake, you can destroy conversation on topic or destroy the will to touch your culture?

I think, that before taking the right to correct and doom someone, we need take a breath and look deeper into this situation (or leave it, if we have no time) especially when personalities are deleted.
Maybe there is a child or a person with decease, who needs some attention or help...

...or maybe there is a person, who has an interesting topic and manner of writing (well, this is not about me), but you can't get it, as your too concentrated on mistakes...

...or maybe a person, who admire your culture or you, and just want to show it and understand the culture more...

Maybe destructive abuse can be transformed into kind & constructive help with grammar...