McIlheran: The Vandal's Human Spellcheck

The other day, the local paper ran a story about a woman who got tired of the vandalism in her neighborhood and took the devastating action of putting up her own vandalism, correcting their spelling.

This morning, said paper ran a letter to the editor pointing out how language is important to cultures and subcultures.

Preview Paddy couldn't help himself but had to get snarky and petty about this guy which spoke a simple fact of life. Besides showing himself to be someone that has no clue of any subculture outside of the chubby, white conservative clique, and making vague racist comments, he ends up with this condescending tone:

Yeah. Where da love, after all, at least for women-seeking vandals with foul mouths? “Someone’s language,” Lipschutz writes, “is intrinsically linked to identity and therefore self-esteem.” Wouldn’t want to trample on that. All right, loutish potential employers or irritated neighbors might get all pedagogically normal about using the B-word, but just who are they to trample on anyone’s self-esteem?

Couldn’t tolerate that, could we?

Perhaps Preview Paddy would rather we just waterboard them instead? After all, they are different from him, which is the only justification he needs.

Then again, perhaps the whole snarky post is just jealousy because the vandals have more readers than he does.