The Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) recently held its annual Convention in Palma. A disgruntled individual who chose not to attend the event wrote criticising it on the TravelMole site http://www.travelmole.com Amongst other things he said,

"...It is those same boring old, 'ill educated' or 'promoted beyond their incompetence', individuals that keep me from the convention.

As for ABTA and it's convention, a huge shake up is needed"

I wrote back and told him that, as one who had attended the convention, I had found it most useful and made the point that the presenters there all seemed "...to know how to spell the word "its", which suggests that they might not be quite so ill-educated as Anthony Rollason himself, who does not..."

The reply I got was surprisingly vitriolic and after several exchanges the said Mr Rollason posted, "...All that you seem to be able to come back with is further confirmation that you are one of the 'ill educated' or 'promoted their incompentence' people to which the original post referred..."

In other words, he suggests that accuracy in grammar and spelling denotes incompetence and, I must infer, that inaccuracy denotes competence!

The road of the promoter of better use of English is a long and arduous one!

Richard English

Why were you surprised that the reply was vitriolic? Surely one of the fundamental truths of human nature is that people who are wrong don't like being told that they are wrong. The more obviously wrong they are, the less they like it.

(I take it you also pointed out the disagreement between individuals and is.)

Glaubt es mir - das Geheimnis, um die größte Fruchtbarkeit und den größten Genuß vom Dasein einzuernten, heisst: gefährlich leben.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

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Surely one of the fundamental truths of human nature is that people who are wrong don't like being told that they are wrong.

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Yes, I suppose you're right, Bob. Yet, let's face it, it all depends on how one is corrected.

I will never forget my first time here learning about the correct use of apostrophes. It was early on (too embarrassing to link to it!), and I nonchalantly said that I may have used my apostrophe wrong, not realizing that there were so many apostrophe enthusiasts here. Well, in fact I used an apostrophe in a plural word! So gently and scholarly, Arnie pointed out the apostrophe rules. I was quite pleased with the knowledge, and surely not insulted.

Yet, had he been high and mighty, well then my reaction would have probably been different.

This thread continued with Rollason getting ever more cross but really he didn't see the point. I was criticising his grammar because it was he who spoke of "...'ill educated' or 'promoted beyond their incompetence', individuals..." and, in doing so showed by his lack of erudition that he was as least as ignorant as those he criticised.

There's more, of course, but the point that I was trying to make was that here was an ignorant man criticising (rudely and wrongly) the efforts of those who put in so much time and effort (at no charge) to make the convention a success.

Richard English

I agree, Richard. Had Rollason perhaps made a constructive criticism, perhaps he could have gotten somewhere.

I am working with a group that is very aggressive in their criticism of boards of nursing. I keep telling them that won't work. It reminds me of the cliche: You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.