Saturday, May 14, 2011

Misquote in Listing

I do not usually mention listings while they are active, but I do not appreciate a seller seeking information from me and then appearing to deliberately misquote me in order to make a book appear more valuable.

Someone contacted me through Bonanza and asked me about the tweed book for Nancy's Mysterious Letter that has the title printed on the book as The Nancy's Mysterious Letter. I replied with the following statement.
It was a recurring anomaly that was on several printings during the 1950s. It is harder to find than the books that have the correct title. This makes it worth slightly more than the books with the correct title.
I received a response thanking me for the information. I was informed that the books were listed on eBay and that my information would be added to the description. It was not until the next day that I decided to check up on the listing. I found that my response had been changed slightly.
"RECURRING ANOMALY THAT WAS ON SEVERAL PRINTINGS DURING THE 1950'S. IT'S HARDER TO FIND THAN THE BOOKS THAT HAVE THE CORRECT TITLE AND THEREFORE IS WORTH A BIT MORE"
The statement was placed in quotation marks as though it was a direct quote. Not really, since the seller changed it slightly. The part that irks me is the final part. My comment about the book being "worth slightly more" was changed to "worth a bit more." That is a minor change, perhaps, but as a prospective buyer, I interpret it as implying that the book could be worth quite a bit more. Click here to view the listing.

Am I right or wrong about how I interpret the slight change in wording? Feel free to discuss. :)

2 comments:

Wendy said...

If I saw that something was worth "a bit more" I would probably interpret it the way you did. That would seriously irk me. I don't blame you for feeling odd about it.

Coffeegulper said...

No, I wouldn't be too bothered, Jennifer. They basically mean the same thing.
But the use of quotes is something else. As a forum manager/moderator for quite a few years now, I well versed in the fact that if you're quoting a source/individual VERBATIM, then the actual text within quotations marks MUST be a direct match to the original source.

When quoting a source, there's no room for one's own interpretation within said quotation marks.

Richard