Spell it Right, Get Corrected?

I am an editing geek. I may not have perfect grammar and editing skills, but I still cringe when I see words spelled wrongly, an "its" in place of "it's" and vice-versa, a phrase used wrongly, a double negative - I have pet peeves when it comes to words, in short. I can often be irrational, in fact, when I make grammatical errors, and I actually imagine a red pen coming out of the sky and impaling me as I spit out the wrong word, the right word wrongly spelled, the comma that comes out of nowhere to tell me that no, I am not perfect.

Miss Editing Geek emerged last semester at a statistics class. Our professor showed the raw data for a statistics problem that involved the 50 U.S. States. His question was, "What's wrong with this data?"

I immediately spotted an error: Massachusetts was spelled "Massachusettes". So I spoke up, "Massachusetts is spelled wrong."

My seat mate, a White American, turned to me. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," I said, and too confidently, I think, "There isn't an 'e' before the last 's.'"

"Oh," he replied, with an understated sneer, "Is that how they spell it in the Philippines?"

"No. That's how they spell it anywhere. Wanna bet?"

I wish I had placed that bet, because my seat mate had promised a hundred dollars - I pitied him then, but I don't pity him now.

Mercilessness aside, I think his question was more than a joke about people who are over critical about spelling. It could be a defense mechanism set up by Caucasians who think that they are the English experts versus the Asian Editing Geek who has no right to correct Americans. It could be a way to put down the Asian girl who seems to be too smart for her own good, especially considering the fact that this same seat mate is a Conservative. For all I know, it could simply have been a joke, and I am over-reading into a mere jest.

On the other hand, I find his comment disturbing. First, how could he not have known how Massachusetts is spelled? Why did he need a non-U.S. citizen to point it out to him? Second, why did he react defensively? Why did he make it sound as though he were putting my skills down - and simply because I wasn't from his country? Was this another case of White Supremacy in action?

I know I could simply be reading too much into the comment - and I, too, might have been annoying for picking out such a tiny error that could have little to no bearing on the data. Then again, I brought this issue up with my boyfriend, and his reaction was, "Could I even trust the data if the data encoder can't spell stuff right? What if the extra 'e' had been an extra '0' in the numbers?"

Then again, we could both be over-reacting.

And still, I remain an Editing Geek. If there are errors in this post, however, please consider the fact that I'm ranting and raving while I'm letting out my verbal diarrhea. I may be setting letters, punctuation marks, and even my sanity loose.