Hawk Wings reviewed and shamed
Claire Rottenberg has started up 
a new directory of “quality Mac web sites”.
As she explains :
Sifting through the hundreds or even thousands of websites with Mac information is a time-intensive effort, so I decided to create this blog to help other Mac users with that task. I’ll be continually adding reviews of Mac websites that meet certain quality criteria.
Hawk Wings was lucky enough to get a work over in her one of her first posts.
She judges that “the writing is in clear, non-technical language that is easily understood, even when the topic is an advanced one” but points out (correctly) that “some entries have typographical errors”.
Sadly even with the best intentions, typos do creep in, a sure sign perhaps that the writer is an “established journalist”.
I’m guilty as charged (apologies), but couldn’t resist pointing out a delicious little irony in the review:
[Thanks, Scott!]
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Tags: Apple Mail, hawkwings, humour, mail.app, not saved by grammar alone, plugins, Reviews, typos
March 19th, 2007 at 1:12 am
Yes, very good sumamry indeed! Typos, typos everywhere…. no one is safe! :P
March 19th, 2007 at 1:29 am
OOOH! The grammar Nazis are out in force! You know, the ones that attack your grammar because they know they cannot win an argument on it’s technical merits.
March 19th, 2007 at 1:36 am
It’s fine to expect professionalism from certain blogs. Certainly my enjoyment of Hawkwings would be tempered if the writing was of poorer quality. Likewise it is extremely fair to turn the mirror on the critic who wants to point out typos. Plaese! :)
March 19th, 2007 at 1:40 am
Funnier still if she meant smarmy and not summary.
March 19th, 2007 at 2:36 am
Sorry DENNIS, the grammar Nazis are almost always in the right, because the grammar and rhetorical principles are the foundation of any communication. In one sentence, you’ve made several errors. First: it’s is a contraction of “it is.” “Its” is the possessive form. Second: the thought is blurry because “the ones that” really should expressed as “people who” because the noun is always more clear than the pronoun. The rest of the thought is “trapped in pronouns” by two uses of “they” and tht final “it.” You sort of know what you are thinking, but we readers need more than a glut of pronouns to figure out what you are saying.
March 19th, 2007 at 3:11 am
Dennis – I take it you’re deliberately misusing the apostrophe in “it’s” to prove your point… ;-)
March 19th, 2007 at 3:52 am
I’m sufficiently embarrassed by the typographical error in my review of your website. Another reader pointed it out and I’ve corrected it. We do all make mistakes and that’s why, in spite of the few mistakes on your site, I included it in the directory as one of my first entries. I think you have an excellent site with more than its share of useful information. Keep up the good work. And thanks for catching my error.
Claire
March 19th, 2007 at 4:03 am
If you didn’t show some inkling that you were human, I wouldn’t have donated to you ;)
March 19th, 2007 at 5:25 am
Another sure sign of an established journalist is the lack of crediting or citing of sources.
March 19th, 2007 at 6:05 am
HA! Thanks for the good laugh.!
March 19th, 2007 at 6:52 am
She must have eagle eyes: I can’t say I’ve ever spotted a typo here.
Was the phrase “quality Mac web sites†quoted as a sly dig, too?
Quality? What quality? :-)
March 19th, 2007 at 8:38 am
@Rhetorical
My point exactly. I had a boss like that, he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the cupboard, but sure did like correcting grammar to compensate.
March 19th, 2007 at 8:43 am
@Seb
How did you guess… :P
March 19th, 2007 at 8:54 am
But have some pity on the lady who’s (*grin*) comments occasioned the original post, Dennis. I bet she didn’t know Tim was a linguist, and I’m sure she meant no harm.
March 19th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Wow. I’m quite unlikely to be visiting quality-mac-websites. Claire’s priorities are very different than mine. Quality on the web is not always associated with proper grammar and spelling. The web is about a wealth of information that is easily searchable, quickly updated, and–hopefully–mostly accurate.
Grammar and spelling are very infrequently considerations of mine when deciding which websites I include in my feed reader. Many of the people posting interesting information that I care about aren’t native english speakers (or appear not to be based on their grasp of the language), but I don’t care as long as the information is good.
March 19th, 2007 at 10:10 am
@Jordan
I don’t think you’re being very fair to Claire and the intent behind her site.
March 19th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
>Jordan
With too many misspellings, your searches won’t work! I’ve had it happen.
March 19th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
I find it odd that the reviewer bothered to mention typographical errors.
I’m sure there are some, but far less than most weblogs, even far less than most quality mac weblogs. And the writing here is exemplary – far better than the subject requires.
This is definitely the only mac weblog I read that has caused me to look up more than one obscure literary or historical reference on wikipedia, and I love a good obscure literary reference. It’s probably one of the two best-written mac weblogs period, the other being Daring Fireball. Keep up the good work.
P. S. Grammar nazis: I’ve included two typographical errors above, and used the word “less” when I meant “fewer,” just to bother you. :)
March 19th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
We come to this site almost every day because it’s so helpful. What nitpicking! Keep up the great work!
March 20th, 2007 at 12:08 am
In all honesty, the nitpicking within her review of your site precludes my interest in her site.
March 20th, 2007 at 1:36 am
@Claire — No hard feelings, I hope. You are quite right to call me out on the typos. It’s a disgrace.
Sometimes I get home from my real job and go at Hawk Wings lickity-slick without remembering to be my own proofreader and sub-editor.
@Bill — Quite so.
Thanks to all for the very kind words :)
March 20th, 2007 at 9:01 am
lol sumamry!
March 20th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Not to belabor this, but ‘grammar police’ will do just fine… as I think Claire would agree, if you’ll take a brief look at her site.
March 22nd, 2007 at 4:17 am
Another victim of Hartman’s law of prescriptivist retaliation!
March 28th, 2007 at 5:02 am
How’s this for irony? From above…
“Hawk Wings was lucky enough to get a work over in her one of her first posts.”
I’m just playing of course. I was lucky enough to get a review today, and I’m sure I have some mistakes littered throughout my pages. It’s nice that Claire gives us a little slack.