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Discourse with an Idiot

The writing biz is a funny thing. It seems as if 'you own your own words' everywhere except in journalism. Readers seem to think *they* own your words, and can respond to them as they please, including misquotation, appropriation, and as a basis for personal affront.

It's particularly amusing when a reader takes umbrage at something I've written. Invariably the reader will seek to impress me with lengthy verbiage about how wrong/misguided/foolish I am, and then, at the end, will close with a gratuitous insult. I suppose it's like a dog hosing a tree to designate his territory; whether the tree is impressed remains an open question.

Today was no exception. I'd compiled a Today's events list, and noted on the list was the beginning of the Siege of Boston in April of 1775. The note was actually from another online news source, all of seven words -- "British began siege of Boston in 1775". To be accurate, the Siege (yes, capitalized) of Boston began in April 1775, but all the British had to do to "begin" was sit there in British-held Boston. The nitty-gritty of the Siege didn't happen right away, but since the little notches on the timelines have to go somewhere, historians pegged the beginning of the Siege of Boston at April 20, 1775.

Less than twelve hours after posting the seven words, I had electronic mail from a self-styled authority who rambled on about the downstream consequences of the siege, and who was doing what to whom. It was the sort of mail that makes you wonder if the correspondent shouldn't perhaps seek out a meaningful hobby.

But he couldn't leave it at the historical correction, no. At the end of his remarks, he tossed off an insult, one he obviously thought stylish and erudite, to the effect that 'my' seven words noting the inception of the Siege of Boston were the result of my having taken large amounts of laxative orally. I have a mental image of this person (I've never met him) chortling with glee as he typed in the cutting remark, stoking his pathetic ego with a fantasy of provoking me to tears, or rage, or perhaps mortifying me so thoroughly that I'd never write again.

Actually, when I stopped laughing, I did feel mortified...for having laughed at someone so in need of a reality check. My dear mother taught me that if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

So I looked up the Siege of Boston in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, and sent him the information in private mail: my corrections to *him*, as it were, without any speculation as to whether he had ingested oral laxatives. Sure, I could have asked him the question.

But his email to me was all the answer I needed. One can only hope he feels better now.

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Josyah Wilton Danfield is the author of "'All The News That Fits The Prince' and Other Tales in Ink", published by Sublingua Press in 1997. His Letters of Opinion appear regularly in The Daily Apocrypha.