Normally I would not post on this sort of thing, but over the past few months, the issues that are present in AKH?s postings have not diminished, and so I feel compelled to comment. This post in particular bothered me for both its grammatical errors and tone problems. I don?t think that expecting a certain level of professionalism is too much to ask.
We start with the headline: ?IE9 beta can't halt Internet Explorer share slide?
I think that this headline is quitter pejorative and implies that AKH can see in to the future and knows that IE9 will not change the browser share trends. Also, who exactly was expecting the beta version of IE9 to change these trends? A better (more accurate) headline would be ?IE9 beta doesn?t halt Internet Explorer share slide.? This is factual and a reasonable summary of the article to follow.
The first paragraph: ?Data released by NetMarketShare for September shows that the usage share for Internet Explorer continues to slide, dropping to its lowest level this year.?
This is a factual and concise summary of the news content in this post.
The second paragraph: ?Internet Explorer?s usage share how 59.65%, beating this year?s previous low of 59.75% set in May. Microsoft might have been pleased with the 6 million downloads of the IE9 beta, but this only translates into a 0.34% usage share. While IE8 enjoyed an increase in usage share, the browser is being dragged down by users migrating from older versions.?
First, I assume that AKH meant ?now is? instead of ?how? in the first sentence. The last sentence is ambiguous, but I assume that he means to say that users of IE6/7 are migrating to Firefox, Chrome, et al.
The third paragraph: ?Firefox, Safari and Opera all held their ground well, while Google Chrome jumped up nearly half a percentage point to 7.98%.?
This is an accurate summary of the other browsers with some nice verbal flair.
The fourth paragraph: ?I look foor trends rather than data points in these numbers, and it?s clear that IE is trending downwards!?
This is the problem section. First, I assume, ?foor? should be ?for?. I am unfortunately not surprised by the number of spelling and grammatical errors in this short post. This is merely the latest example of a trend that has been evident for some time. I expect professional bloggers/journalists who are writing for the consumption of other professionals, to at least use basic spellcheck and to correct these errors before they are posted.
The other issue with this sentence is the exclamation point at the end. This implies excitement about the content of the sentence; I might go so far as glee. While I don?t expect AKH to be a dispassionate automaton, I also don?t want to see him be a cheering section for or against any particular company or service. I?m disappointed that he felt it necessary to turn a frankly boring statistical data point into what appears to be a post cheering a simple trend.
