Hey. iPhone Application Developers. Spell check your work so you don’t look like a 2-bit operation.

I know that spelling and grammar are not everyone’s forte, and that most people actually don’t give a damn. However, there are a lot of people – like me – who will, subconsciously or otherwise, judge you by your words. I’m not necessarily talking about random quick communication such as text messages or email between friends, but rather things that are put out there for the general public to see: advertising, clothing, instructions, etc.

Maybe I take my love of the English language to extremes, but I visibly cringe when I see something with a glaring mistake in it. It’s a thousand times worse when that mistake is on a consumer product – how many people looked at this before it was released, and no one noticed the error? And you expect people to PAY for it? Are you insane?

One of the worst examples I’ve seen is probably this kid’s t-shirt for sale at Old Navy:

i hate you so hard

Not only are you selling this horrible thing with a terrible grammatical error; you’re selling it to CHILDREN. I wanted to burn the entire table of t-shirts, such was my outrage. I did take one to the checkout line to tell the vastly uninterested teenager behind the counter, but he just shrugged at the stupid fat girl angry over an apostrophe (or as they are commonly known, “sky commas”). Apparently, having a sense of pride and decorum over your ability to communicate at a level befitting your age and education background is, like, sooooo lame.

I’ve been going on a downloading rampage lately, grabbing any iPhone application that catches my eye. I generally ignore the free ones, because I am willing to pay money for a decent game or tool. That being said, for my $.99 I expect SOME level of professionalism – if you’re charging people money, the least you can do is run your product by someone who passed 5th grade English. I know $.99 isn’t a lot of money, but it’s the principle of it all – if I find a cringe-worthy mistake, I’m going to think less of you and your company for it.

Here’s a shot from a game called “I Dig It”. It’s currently the number 1 paid app in iTunes Canada. It’s a pretty neat little game; one that definitely looks good and kept me entertained .. until this happened:

grr

Really? You use the same word correctly later in the same sentence; what changed? I still play the game, but I think about the abused “your” every time I do and I turn my nose up at InMotion Software because of it.

This next example is worse. It’s a little app called Sleuth, and features a series of short mystery stories that the reader then has to solve, based on what you’ve read. It’s a neat idea, but the execution leaves a little to be desired:

help me mcgiver

brother can you spare a sky comma

I find this the worst offender of the two, because this app is nothing but words – it’s a reading game.

Maybe I just hold the rest of the world to too high a standard. I know mistakes happen – I’ve made more than a few myself, some with drastic results – but I still make a conscious effort to come across literate, and I’m not trying to sell you something. Why should I give money to someone who doesn’t care what kind of impression they make? Ignorance is not always bliss.

It’s not just me, is it?

*sigh*