Blogging, a tricky affair ? Part-VII
Mind your language
I lyk ur blg itz smth kewl
My gurlz imho cn do dis
1 of d bst blog I eva cn
I ws msg u
hw do u lyk dis
wtng fr nu pst
itz fukkin gud
Oh please ! This is NOT your chat window where you are dealing with multiple people at a given time and have to take short-cuts. This is your blog which reflects your personality and you are trying to woo or attract people of different backgrounds, different culture and different languages.
I can not understand why one can not write ‘girl’ instead of ‘gurl’. Look carefully, you are not even shortening it, only misspelling it. For God’s sake, it is not hip.
Avoid writing this ‘modern’ language in comments as well.
And the ‘F’ word ?? Some of your blogs are full of fu*king shit. How do you like it now ?
Again, you can argue on it being ‘your blog, your space, your rules’ where you can write anything you want to but here we are talking about inviting others to our house. Nobody will enter a house full of shit unless he himself is used to it.
Also, in trying to impress your readers with your powerful command over the language, do not go for uncommon, difficult words. We all know & understand we are not here for any literary competition or exam to use that Shakespearean language.
Again, the thumb rule is to identify your target. There is no harm in writing in even regional language if you plan to cater to that group. If you are going international, stick to English.
Even if someone comments in any other language, for example Hindi, it’ll be polite if you can reply to him in the same but keep in mind that there are people who will not understand a single word of it. The comment section is open to all and some readers do read all the comments. They do so at least on my blog and I generally try to reply in both languages.
Pay heed to your spellings and bare minimum grammar. First, write your post in MS-word or any other such tool which supports spell-checks, grammar etc. The most common mistakes are homophones such as their-there, of-off, to-too, sweet-sweat etc.
Also, give attention to font size and colour. Just because you like pink color on an orange background, do not force your readers to like it as well. Your readers are human beings. Please take care of their eyes lest they stop reading your posts.
Question for you:- What lessons have you learnt by reading other blogs ? Can you add some here ?
P.S.- As you would have noticed I am off blogging for sometime. Have scheduled some posts of this series including this one and some other as well. I’ll try to come online once in 3-4 days to moderate comments or even reply to them if possible.
Keep reading, keep commenting. 
Au revoir !
To be contd ..
Current Song:- Kal Chaudhvin Ki Raat Thi – Ghulam Ali
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Tags : Blogging, Blogosphere, Tips & Tricks
~vagabond~ said,
May 10, 2009 @ 7:39 pm
You’ve addressed one of my pet peeves in this post. I cnt stnd ppl who wrte lyk dis. Gah!
sumit said,
May 10, 2009 @ 8:08 pm
to be honest, am quite fine with the use of the short forms occasionally in the comments section, but for posts - no way!! its a big put off!!
another I would raise is, one should proof-read the post!! I have been guilty of eating up words, in that I think, but in the scurry of typing I often end up missing a few words here and there. the end result, one might get the feeling I’m someone who has a poor grasp of the language, or something negative in that strain. Not good!!
Some Dos I follow:
1. Read the posts carefully before you post it.
2. Preview them, for appearance. Is it pleasing enough?
3. Justify the alignment of your text. It may not be possible on Wordpress, but blogger allows one to do the same. So, if you blogging platform allows you to do that, do it. It is aesthetically pleasing.
4. The font (size n type) should be consistent throughout unless otherwise required (e.g. a conversation in a fiction might require a different font, may be size)
5. Add pictures if you must, but ensure they are at the right place. otherwise, they lose/diminish their importance w.r.t. posts. Also ensure that they turn up just where you want them on the post
PS: I wish blogger would allow us to add captions to pics like wordpress does!!
abhishek said,
May 10, 2009 @ 8:15 pm
Nice pointers…so what do you think of my blog cuckoo…do I need o tone down a bit??
Musings » Blogging, a tricky affair ? Part- VIII said,
May 13, 2009 @ 8:45 pm
[...] Contd from Part VII [...]