Annie – Little did you know! It’s not just leg warmers. 80s style has come back in a big way! Leggings, ballet flats, even those fingerless gloves! I just wish I knew what I did with all that stuff I had in high school. At least the gloves and the leg warmers would still fit.

But hey, if you don’t like being cold, you know what’s big now? Footie pajamas for grown-ups. Seriously.

Honest – I was in the far-left lane when I wrote that comment and just threw up the first two things from the 80s I could think of. So, yeah, I about *died* when I heard later that day that Lisa had just received her leg warmers in the mail.

I had no idea they came back. But I’m in Florida, so there wouldn’t be much of a market for them here.

Why couldn’t they have come back when I was freezing my butt off in CO? I even did a search for them once. I hate to be cold so much, I would have worn them even if they weren’t in style.

Sorry, Lisa! Enjoy your leg warmers.

And I wore my leg warmers to work yesterday so I’m glad you agree with me that they’re back in style!

John: I think that’s a very valid complaint. We all get so caught up in our own days that we often forget to say “thanks”. Before I left my old job, I wrote a post “thanking” our readers because I felt like it was an important thing to do.

http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/archives/2008/09/10_things_i_love_about_you.html

I just write. They’re the ones who take time out of their day to read and comment. That’s something to be grateful for.

So…thanks for finding us here and thanks for taking the time to comment. Don’t be a stranger.

Annie, I love this: “In her mind, making a reader stop and re-read something was tantamount to tripping someone.” I agree wholeheartedly. But I do feel obligated to tell you, leg warmers are back.

I think I AM a bit of a spelling and grammar Nasty. Mainly ‘coz I feel it refelcts badly on the author, or the author’s enterprise or organisation.

For example, yesterday I was invited to fill in a form as part of the evaluation of a conference I attended on the subject of Innovation & Australia. I got to a point in the survey form where I was asked, by the state Department of Trade and Economic Development here in South Australia [Australia], whether I “definately” agreed with a proposition. All I could do was respond in the comments section, “it’s definitely NOT definately”.

Grrrrrrrr. Would I, as an international organisation or individual, wish to do business with a lead government agency that can’t spell?

Regards,

Michael Zerman

(That’s Zerman, like German with a ZED. How hard is that?

As a junior reporter, my first editor used to always say, “Don’t make me stop and figure out what you’re trying to say.” Her guiding principle was people are busy, and they don’t want to have to read something you’ve written twice b/c they can’t figure out what you’re trying to communicate.

Because she was a hard ass, she would hand back any article at the point she “tripped” and make me fix it. (In her mind, making a reader stop and re-read something was tantamount to tripping someone.) It was ridiculously annoying at the time, but it drilled into me the importance of having a flow of thought that others can easily follow.

As far as grammar and spelling go, I find that I have different thresholds of what I’m willing to endure, depending on what I’m reading and why:

If it’s Twitter, a personal blog, a site that does movie reviews, or something like that, I could really care less about the grammar – as long as it’s reasonably understandable.

If it’s a site that’s selling something, I start to get a little pickier. If I’m looking to buy something relatively inconsequential, like a DVD, game, song, or clothes, no big d. (If it’s shoes, I don’t care if it’s written in Pig Latin; I’m buying on funk factor alone.)

But if I visit a site that offers services that are pricier (like consulting services) or deal with relatively serious issues (like health or legal sites), I’m less tolerant of sloppy copy that’s written on a 7th grade level. I expect a company that wants me to fork over a serious stack – or trust their legal/health advice – to respect me enough to hire a competent copywriter.

As far as not be allowed to end a sentence with preposition, that rule went out with leg warmers and Aquanet.