Yes, I am a grammar nazi.

That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy great content because of some “there” and “their” and “they’re,” so I’m more of a wannabe grammar nazi.

The biggest problem I have with typos or verbal mistakes is when they affect the very content — or, much worse, the meaning – they present. This usually happens when there’s a large density of mistakes. A typo is simply a typo, it happens when you’re in a rush.

One mistake, like “shes” instead of “she’s,” I can live with, and I automatically correct that error while processing the information. Forty errors in a blog post is too much. My mind’s just as busy correcting them as it is gulping up the data, never mind emotion.
A very large number of errors also makes me question the quality of the content. This is the part where things get bad. I can usually read easy stuff — blogs, magazines, newspapers — with my own voice. If I know the author well enough, though, I can read it with their voice. But if I don’t know the author, and I can’t read it with my own voice, because there’s no way in hell I can make that many mistakes or such epic errors, I really cannot enjoy the read. I just can’t make a connection between the authors and myself through what they produce.

This ‘feature’ of mine manifests itself in real life as well, in spoken conversations. The more I like a person, the higher the chances I’ll go into wannabe grammar nazi™ mode with them. Even if I don’t really like a person, there are some mistakes I will not live with. This makes me sound like a cocky geeky douchebag from time to time, and occasionally hurts some people’s ears, but ‘much better you than I’.

I still think I can enjoy a good read even if it has some mistakes in it and that I’m not that detail-oriented to miss the point.

For you to get a better idea of how this works for me, here’s a blog I love reading: Scott Adams’ Blog. On his very first post, he stated that he will make a lot of spelling mistakes, and he does make some. However, the frequency of those mistakes is actually rather low, and the content itself is pure awesome. Also, his mistakes are mostly misspellings caused by laziness, which I can totally relate to. I have to look up how to spell Ghandi myself, and I don’t always want to. I don’t really see these mistakes as a sign of poor mental capacity, I rather see them as a strong focus on the subject at hand — the big picture.

Pure grammar nazis make me giggle.