The results are in. Most readers who commented on “To niggle or not to niggle?” expressed support for continuing to niggle and whinge over language misuse and abuse.
They said, “Continue to niggle.” “Niggle away.” “Niggle on.” “Go forth niggling boldly.”
I interpret this as a mandate and, hence, won’t declare Word Nymph a whinge-free zone just yet. I will, however, refrain from attributing poor communication to broad classes, including The Young People or These Kids Today, as some word blogs do, though I reserve the right to point out generational trends for instructional purposes only. (How’s that for a run-on sentence?) Besides, many of my readers are young people who are far more literate and articulate than I.
Thankfully, StumbleUpon.com, which knows my interest in writing, placed a timely post in my path. I not only stumbled on it, but nearly fell on my face upon reading it.
English teachers and fellow wordies: take out your red pens and go to work on this one, from a blog called Stepcase Lifehack. Whinge away, my friends. Niggle on.
“Fifty (50!) Tools which can help you in Writing – Roy Peter Clark from Poynter Institute has posted up 50 tools that can help you when you do any kinds of writing. This is a extensive list of writing tools, but by no mean you need to apply all of them when you do any writing.”
The writer follows this up with “Links of 50 Writing Tool.”
We might have to visit Stepcase Lifehack again.
Word Nymph 
Thanks for posting this list. I’ve only glanced at the titles, but it looks like a marvelous find!
Hi, Monica
I went back to click through on the links on the 50 tools page, and I can’t get any of them to work. They each go to the same site (http://www.archive.org/web/web.php – and a section called The WayBack Machine). Thinking it was something with my machine, I tried two othes, and other browsers, too. Sad to say, none of them work as advertised. What a pity!!
I am not surprised. It’s an old post, even though it came to me just yesterday. The point of my quoting it was to show the poor writing and the irony therein. However, I did find a link to Poyner’s original list. I’ll be reading it as you are. http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/newsgathering-storytelling/writing-tools/76067/fifty-writing-tools-quick-list/
Thanks for the quick check and new link! Most appreciated!
Thanx for the go ahead to niggle! We will continue!
Only yesterday I was niggling WordPress for their extemely limited vocabulary (for somethign calling itself WORDpress) and poor spelling (Automattic?)
http://thenewcomer.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/wordpress-analysis/
further visits should be visited upon us only as punishment. an insurance company simply would declare that wreck of a site, “totalled”. (have we decided finally the issue of periods and quotation marks??)