Ways to Make Your Food Suck – Awful Writing

Blogger telling me that the word is misspelled

Nothing else turns me off than reading through a blog post or a recipe and finding bad grammar, misspellings and just plain bad style. If I read enough bull shit, I stop and I won’t even recommend it to anyone, unless it’s for a chuckle here or there. It’s that simple. If I feel this way, I’m sure that there will be others who would agree with me. What’s worse is if it’s a new reader coming across the article. Why would someone put themselves through that?

Misspellings

In this day and age, there is no excuse to misspell words. Blogger, for instance, flags words that are incorrect. Nevertheless, I see it all too often. If you’re using an app such as Windows Live Writer or some other blog editor, this, too, is not an excuse for misspelling words. The occasional word is forgivable, but if the entry is rife with it, I don’t even go back.

Bad Grammar

Windows Live Writer in action

Bad grammar is cringe-worthy. I read through and one of my eyebrows rises.

“I used medium size molder for this recipe and I was able to made around 30 pieces of delicious Kutsinta. [sic]”  (from Mely's Kitchen)

Which should have read:

“I used a medium size molder for this recipe and I was able to make around 30 pieces [of kustinta].”

I’m one for reducing redundancy and it’s why I left out “kutsinta” in the correction. Most of the recipes on the Mely’s Kitchen are written very well. Longer texts, on the other hand, such as her commentaries, contain grammatical errors. After reading post after post, it’s become apparent: Mely’s not a native English speaker. So, I give her some slack. By the way…  what the fuck is a "molder"?

 

In such cases, bad grammar is excusable since English is not her first language. Her recipes are enticing enough, nevertheless. But I skip the commentaries or introductions for the cringe-worthy grammar. They add nothing. There are a few other things that I would skip, but I will comment on them in another post. But she is trying and she has gained quite a number of followers. Yet, I wonder why no one has mentioned this to her to help improve the blog. Or, is she just making excuses and looking past them? I haven’t seen any corrections and I’ve visited the same recipes at least twice. Mely, if you’re reading, you need to clean up the blog.

 

Regardless of your fluency, native or not, grammar checking is available in many modern word-processing applications. Microsoft Word has it built in. If you are using a free word processor an extension can be installed in OpenOffice.org’s Writer. Grammar checking doesn’t seem to have made it into the web editor for Blogger, but if it has, I haven’t noticed yet. In addition, I use Windows Live Writer to write most of my posts. It is a great help since it uses Word’s grammar engine.

 

Even if your editing software lacks a grammar-checking capability, it should at least have a spellchecker. A few misspelt words is not very noticeable. Finding more than a few raises an eyebrow or two. But, finding too many can lead to confusion.

 

Tip: step away from your work for a few hours or a couple of days and revise it. Or, have someone else, like a good friend, to revise it. Hopefully, they are a “Grammar Nazi”. If you are not a native speaker of the target language - look for a friend who is. The more eyes, the more mistakes that can be caught. Grammar mistakes can be embarrassing, but like many things if caught early enough the embarrassment won't go global.

 

Now, a little more ranting… Although this is technically not a grammatical error, I find that the majority of recipe writers from the Philippines like to use the plural “shrimps”. In my English dialect, “shrimp” is both singular, plural and mass noun. And, to read “30 shrimps, clean[ed] and deveined” makes me want to reach out and hurt someone! Argh!

Misuse of Punctuation

Or, in some cases lack thereof.

 

Punctuation can be tricky and there are some rules that are hard to grasp if you don't write for a living. An example is when to use a colon or when to use a semicolon. That aside, it’s good to brush up on the proper use of at least the comma and the period. A very good example of bad punctuation can be seen in a faked magazine cover.

 

Commas make the difference!

The cover is allegedly from Tails, a magazine for pet owners. It shows Rachel Ray holding one of her dogs. The hoaxer deliberately removed the commas, and the text next to her read:

“Rachel Ray finds inspiration in cooking her family and her dog.”

The image has since gone viral. But, it has been debunked by Mashable.com. The actual text was:

“Rachel Ray finds inspiration in cooking, her family, and her dog.”

Punctuation. It’s that important.

 

Bad Style

Style is all about how you write the post and how it’s laid out. Everyone has their own style. Yet, some bloggers do not understand the concept and ramble on. You leave the reader thinking, "get to the fucking point!" It’s like reading a post in Reddit! (Posts there can get pretty bad.) Writers use the same word over and over again. Or, the writer tells us that the food “is tasty”, “is delicious”, or that we should “give it a try”, etc.

 

Bobby Flay once told a contestant on “Food Network Star” that “tasty” or “delicious” lacked any true “meaning”; he was right. If you didn’t think the food was delicious to begin with, why would you take the time to write about it? (Here's another topic to write about.) He encouraged the contestants to use more descriptive words and tell view how the food is "tasty" or why the food is “delicious" - Give the viewer something to relate to. Cooking is an art form. And, as an artist, you have to be familiar with the vocabulary and know to apply it.

Writers who I think are the worst offenders of this pet peeve of mine are those that do not organize their posts in a way that the reader can easily follow. Prime examples are introductions to a recipe. When I read the following, I didn’t bother reading any further the first time around:

”And of course the Coconut trunk can be used for cheap lumber, most commonly used in the Philippines to make concrete forms and also used to build huts as an alternative for more types of traditional lumber. Okay enough said, now let see my recipe!

Is it hot in here? No, not yet! But it will be as we dig deeper into this particular dish. First things first, before we get any deeper into this recipe I just want to make certain things clear. I’m not a Bicolano nor have I ever even been in Bicol. I was born in Antipolo Rizal and basically grew up in Quezon City before moving here to the U.S. in September of 1992. I’m going to apologize in advance if any of my facts aren’t totally accurate... ” [sic]

And, blah... And, blah... And, blah... Not even a squirrel! 
(from Kusinero.net)

Bicol Express whose recipe I have yet to read.

“Let see my recipe! [sic]" is right! Don’t say that unless you truly mean it! There were FIVE More paragraphs of text before you actually “get to the recipe.” (I should be grateful that the writer at least used paragraphs.) What does the coconut tree trunk have to do with the recipe? A1! (“Ewan”, I don’t know!) How the fuck am I supposed to know? Unless there is a story to be told that connects to the recipe, don’t put it in. This seem to resemble  a memory of his, but I just never made the connection. Did he need to hit a text quota? If I didn’t get the point, who else did not?

 

I still haven’t read the recipe. And, I don’t want to. It might have stuff from the coconut tree that is inedible!

 

What It Costs

Many a high school student will complain about taking English class. “Why do we have to study a language that we already speak?!” It’s because of misspelling, bad grammar and bad style that it exists. It there to help you express yourself and your ideas in a way that somebody else will understand. So, thank your English teacher for showing you how to write an understandable blog post and to use "correctments" as a friend of mine likes to joke.

The results of one or more of these blunders is plain old bad writing. If they make the post unappealing, then the food is unappealing too. It makes you less authoritative and less professional. It’s a true shame that people are more interested in presentation that the actual content of the post. Not only have you lost a reader by committing these simple, yet correctable mistake, but you lose credibility. In an Internet where possibly thousands of other people are writing about the same exact thing, the reader will go to someone else does the job just a bit betterly then ewe.