Everyone has pet peeves and I'm no different. It bothers me that Jay Leno uses the "How fat are we getting in this country?" punchline at least once a week. It bothers me that people celebrate the McRib. It bothers me that the writers on NBC's 30 Rock try to convince me in every episode that Tina Fey is unattractive in any way.
The pet peeve that takes the cake, however, are those who cannot spell the most simple and common words. Yesterday, after the Los Angeles Angels signed Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson, folks ran to Twitter to chat all about it. As a result "The Angels" began to trend, as did "Angles" just two spots below it.
I'd hoped for the sake of America to click on that tag and find some exciting news from the world of geometry, but sure enough the posts were almost all from people who simply couldn't correctly spell angel, even with millions of them sitting atop Christmas trees right this very moment.
I've seen this before. Daily, in fact, as I turn on XBox Live. I don't think it's possible to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 for any length of time without seeing Gamertags that can't spell to save their lives.
I'm not talking about the people who use the groundbreaking concept of using numbers in place of letters, either. I'm not talking about the folks who think calling themselves a "playa" doesn't make them look like a total toolbag.
With millions more XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles selling already this holiday season, I fear it may get worse, so I'm noting here some of the most common violations in the wild hope it will help at least one person avoid looking silly in a multiplayer lobby.
* ANGEL - Seen as "angle" and "angell" at times. Since the great Twitter baseball run yesterday, I'll start here, as nobody fears the "Angle of Death" outside of math class.
* PHOENIX - Seen as "pheonix" constantly, or worse. Cool word. One of my favorites. It's also the name of a classic arcade game, a major american city and one of the X-Men. How 75 percent of those who put it in their Gamertag spell it wrong is something I can't accept.
* ASSASSIN - Seen as "asassin" and "assasin" and even "assassain" and more. You'd think a word that starts with two profanities back-to-back would thrive on XBox Live, but it doesn't. Saw a guy once who called himself "AssasainsCreedFan" or something like that, apparently so into that game that he never once looked at the box, disc or title screen.
* LOSER - Seen as "looser" more often than not. A Gamertag stating "YouAreALooser" is pretty ironic, really. Too bad the word "looser" is what you'd like your pants to be after Christmas dinner instead.
* PROPHECY - If you are going to claim to be one, please realize that you cannot realize a "profacy" at any point in time.
* Sports Names - I don't remember a baskeball player named "Jordon" or a football player named "Farve" or a baseball player named "Getur" nor should anyone else.
I could go on all day. Bottom line is that video gaming already gets enough of a black eye in the press without gamers who can't be bothered to spell their choice of screen names correctly. It costs money to fix it, too, that could be used for something silly like more games or map pack downloads instead.
Share this story. Print it out and include it with that XBox you just bought for little Joey or whatever. In a world where a typo of a simple word actually trends on Twitter we need to hit this problem from every "angle" we can.
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The author of this article can be found at PatrickScottPatterson.com and on Twitter @OriginalPSP. Not responsible for anyone who takes this article too seriously.
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