online manual of style? NEVER!

Disclaimer: I'd like to start of this post by saying that I have both an undergraduate and a graduate degree in English. I've worked for a major publishing house and as the managing editor for a magazine.

What's my point? My point is... I *love* grammar. I love style manuals. These things totally get me going.

Observation/Opinion: The web is not print. Casual online conversations are not formal academic treatises. And even more, in the online realm, content is superior to form. Blogs are conversations.

Situation: I watched a blog flame war yesterday (I refuse to distinguish this fiasco with a link back). The flame war was NOT about the post or the content - but about the blogger's misuse of the term "elude" when he should have used the term "allude." This turned into a tit for tat during which the blogger and the commenter totally dissected each other's comments, posts, and track record as human beings. It was completely ridiculous. The misuse of the word was also kinda funny in the context of the article. :)

Here's what I think. I think that whether we like it or not, the web is loosening up grammar rules. When I write, I hear what I write in my head, and try to map that conversational tone via punctuation, grammar, and overall style (I love me some sentence fragments). To me, it seems friendly - and I'm a very friendly person. I'm also a big fan of not capping things... perhaps because I love ee cummings. Perhaps because caps are associated with shouting. I try not to make careless grammar mistakes, but things happen. And when they do, we should fix them.

But the web isn't print. And it's ok to loosen up. The web is changing the way we communicate: style and all.