March 23, 2003
The Importance Of Good Spelling

Poor 'Hesiod Theogeny' gets tired of the criticism of his spelling, but here's a case where bad spelling makes for nonsense (yesterday's last post, if the precise link doesn't work):

SPEAKING OF LEBANON: Iraqi opposition sources reported to the Lebanon Daily Star, that Saddam's son Usay was wounded in coalition attacks, and that not as many high level aides to Saddam have defected as has been implied by Coalition sources.

Transliterations differ, but the names of Saddam's two sons are most often spelled 'Uday' and 'Qusay'. Which does 'Hesiod' mean by 'Usay'? It's impossible to tell, since it's one letter off from both. Perhaps he meant to write 'Uday' but his finger slipped and hit S instead of D (the letters are next to each other on the keyboard). Perhaps he meant to write 'Qusay', but skipped over the first letter in his haste. The former error looks more likely, and Uday is the one most often reported to have been killed or wounded in the first day of bombing. But no, if we follow the link to the Lebanon Star, we find that it's Qusay (or Qusai, as they spell it) who's supposed to have been wounded.

So what's Hesiod's problem? Fat fingers like Comic Book Man? A neurological disorder like the emperor Claudius? A habit of posting while drunk or drugged? Contempt for his readers leading to gross carelessness? The last seems most likely, and contempt for many of his readers would be quite justified. For instance, his flying monkey 'panyspoo' comments on this post without showing any awareness of its incoherence.

Posted by Dr. Weevil at March 23, 2003 09:11 AM