Grammarmama Takes Umbrage!

Pompous though it may sound, there are pitfalls to having one's commercial blog gig syndicated by Yahoo. Far be it from me to bite the hand that feeds me, but there are moments here at the Crabmanor when I sit in my purple blogging robe, stare at the screen, and wonder how much farther I can plunge myself into the rank armpit of mass culture.

One doesn't expect major brain power to be drawn to a blog about motherhood appearing at a Yahoo women's channel called Shine, for God's sake (and this is where my Cookie bloglet is now syndicated), but when I read the comments my posts elicit, I am almost impressed by how low it can go. Witness the sort of thing that accompanied my admittedly ho-hum post about that tiny living Nepal goddess:

This is there culture and what they believe. But if this was done in America it would be called child abuse. I won't pretend to understand this, this is a three year old child who will tossed away when she starts to menastrate.

Good point, "Necee"! Indeed, we can all feel sorry for a menastrating three year old.

To be sure there are some perfectly smart responses in the mire at Yahoo (and many of them come out when you least want anyone to actually think about the drivel you've written), but a fair number of these comments are quite spectacularly atrocious. And MANY APPEAR IN CAPS:

I THINK THAT IS WONDERFUL WHEN YOU CAN BE HONEST IN ANY ASPECT OF LIFE WE NEED TO BE VERY HONEST WITH OUR CHILDREN ,THEY NEED THAT SOMEONE THEY TRUST AND CAN RELATE TO.

Or just in plain lowercase, caps be damned:

thats weird i just told my five year old mommys got a baby in the belly and his first responce was "how?" i wasnt ready for that. lol, but hes happy, he wants a little brother.

I know it's just an online forum and all, but I can't help the fact that I have elitist tendencies that no amount of shock therapy has been able to erase.

I am also amazed by the avatars people choose for themselves in these settings. Indeed, the online handles are often utterly Byzantine and involve long series of numbers and misspelled nicknaming: MommakityAngelcakes567498. Okay, so I made that one up, but you get the picture. It's also hard for people to stick to the point sometimes. You write about mommy manners, or lack thereof, and you get this:

I appreciate your topic. This very nice to say. Do you like hot black singles? Manys peoples finding love on thes site. I hear Mariah Carey is going there.

Anyhoo, things have definitely improved over at the Yahoo comments of late, and there are certainly more appropriately directed readers coming over to the Crabmom...but I remain enchanted by the peculiarly, spectacularly warped sentences sprinkled into the mix. Thankfully I am very popular at Yahoo. Here's what one unfortunately quite articulate reader had to say about me after I admitted to—gasp!—not being able to recognize my baby in the baby nursery:

Seriously? you shouldn't be breeding; poorly written, poorly thought out, arrogant, narcissistic, whining b.s. all rolled into one-seriously, the saddest part is not that you're so unworthy of praise for your writing and parenting, it's that you've diluted the gene pool of our species even further by reproducing...how sad. time to tie those tubes up, for the sake of humanity.

If you're so inclined, please go over to the bloglet today for more "narcissistic, whining b.s.": Only this time it isn't from me; it's from Gwyneth Paltrow. And, yes, Crabmommy tries to avoid writing about shalebritays, but I'm afraid the slender golden Paltrow begged me to, and even I can't resist a begging shalebritay. Last, for those of you asking what's become of my commitment to banishing my postpartum tummy flub, also known as the mom-flap? Read about my harder-than-sushi-knives abs right here.