Proper Grammar: A Rant

IF YOU NEED AN EDITOR, PLEASE READ THIS. ALSO, MESSAGE ME. I WANT TO HELP.

Do you know how many notifications I get per day? Just from following two groups? The answer is, usually, around a hundred and thirty. Probably twenty to thirty of these are journal entries, and about fifty to sixty of them feature characters that I don't care about, so that brings it down to about fifty. Fifty stories a day. Want to know how many I actually read? One, if that. Why?

Grammar, my friends, is everything to me. I used to be a Grammar Nazi, until I realized that (much like in the case of religion), no problem was ever fixed by shouting to someone that they would burn in hell for their mistakes. So instead, I sit quietly at home and judge you. If you used "you're" when you meant to use the possessive "your"? Judging you. Forgot what a comma is supposed to do? Judging you. Misspelled every third word? Really judging you.

Most of you (note that I said most) are native English speakers. Most of you are between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO BE THIS BAD AT A LANGUAGE YOU'VE KNOWN FOR OVER A DECADE. There are only two excuses, which are as follows:

1) Is English not your native language? Well, hats off to you, my friend. You're almost certainly better at my language than I am at yours. However, I still die a little inside every time you forget to capitalize a proper noun, so please talk to me. I would be happy to help you.

2) Are you dyslexic? So is an old friend of mine, but she still took the time to learn to write and spell. If she wasn't sure of something, she asked me, and I never bitched. (Though I still tease her about the time that she spelled "friend" three different (and incorrect) ways.)

I never post in the comments of poorly-edited stories, because the instant I see that a rough draft has made it to the 'publishing' stage, I turn tail and run. I know for a fact that a lot of other potential readers do, as well. This sort of thing is like garlic to vampires, like krypotonite to Superman, like a spray bottle to a cat. Please find an editor, and I promise that you will gain at least one new reader.

If you want me to be your editor, then please note me. I will most likely respond within eight hours, and I can finish editing nearly anything in under twenty-four. If I run into an unexpected issue, I will contact you to let you know and give you an estimate on how long my internet access will be crippled. I will not hate or judge you if you ask for help. Quite the opposite: I will love you forever if you are a big enough person to admit that you suck at grammar.

Sorry if this comes off as a bit preachy, but there's really no other way for me to address this topic. It is, quite easily, my biggest pet peeve. It offends me more than almost anything else. I worked hard to become eloquent in this language, but no one else has. My vocabulary is going to waste, and all the hard work put in centuries ago to create the language we have today no longer matters if you don't learn how to speak it.