Maybe the “Online Comments Are Basically Worthless” People Have a Point

The New Britain Herald has a story up about a high-achieving local student who is mulling over several Ivy League acceptances.  It’s a perfectly heartwarming story . . . until the commenters start in.

The first poster is innocuous enough, but then someone writes in with the dreaded unintentionally ironic grammar/spelling correction:

” I think she was excepted at Johns Hopkins as I don’t think there is a John Hopkins! “

On the one hand, “Santa” is perfectly correct: There’s a typo in the story, which should refer to Johns Hopkins University.  On the other hand, Santa has left herself open on the excepted/accepted flank:

” John Hopkins University is in Baltimore Md. and is one of the best schools for medicine in the USA. Yes, it does exist!! And she was accepted, not excepted which means to be excluded. “

“Bob” is so eager to rush in to pedantically correct the accepted/excepted point that he misses the larger point: “John Hopkins University” does *not* exist, although The Johns Hopkins University, familiarly called Johns Hopkins, certainly does.

All of this subliteracy, mind you, is attached to an article celebrating a local student’s academic achievements!!

(Yes, I’m a little cranky tonight, mostly for reasons I can’t talk about directly.  But, hey–it’s just 8 days until Merlin Mann comes to campus.  And, after that, just 2 more weeks of class.)