Skitt's Law is an adage in Internet culture that originated on Usenet. Its precise wording is a matter of debate, but its general intent is that someone who corrects another's grammar or spelling mistake is bound to make such a mistake in the very post that makes the correction. In one phrasing, "Spelling or grammar flames always contain spelling or grammar errors."

Some view the law as a curse.

The term Skitt's Law appears to have been coined by G. Bryan Lord, posting to Usenet as Perchprism, in a post in October 1998 to the newsgroup alt.usage.english, in reference to a poster using the nickname Skitt.http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=[email protected]&output=gplain The original wording was, "The mistake you're correcting in another's post will appear in yours."

Similar laws are known by a variety of alternate names; in several cases, the law was coined independently by people with no knowledge of previous coinages. Alternate names include:
*Bell's First Law of Usenet (Andrew Bell in alt.sex, May 15, 1990): "Bell's First Law of USENET: Flames of spelling and/or grammar will have spelling and/or grammatical errors."http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=[email protected]&output=gplain
*Hartman's Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation (Jed Hartman, April 1998): "Any article or statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to contain at least one eror."http://www.kith.org/logos/words/lower3/hhhyphen.comments.html
*Tober's Lor (in the Usenet group uk.local.birmingham, 1998, after T. Bruce Tober who postulated it)
*McKean's Law (lexicographer Erin McKean, 1999)
*Gaudere's Law on the Straight Dope message board (2000)
*Naruki's Law in the User Friendly forums
*Greenrd's Law on Kuro5hin (2002) http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2002/4/16/61744/5230?pid=5#6

One Usenet participant, Eric Kehr, jokingly referred to it as Merphy's Law (sic).




Category:Internet culture
Category:Adages
Category:Curses
Category:Eponymous laws