How do I tell her without it looking like I'm point scoring?!

[Nows]

I had a friend who completely cut me off earlier this year. Usually, if you've annoyed someone, you have some inkling of what you've done but I genuinely don't have the faintest idea.

We are involved in volunteering for the same charity - she produces the newsletter. Tonight she has emailed me asking if I'm ok with an item she has written about an event I represented our charity at. (This is the first contact since April when she stopped talking to me). There is a mistake in her item - not a factual mistake but a mistake in construction/grammar.

Do I say anything or will it just look like I'm point scoring? If I do say something - how do I say it please without sounding petty!

Ask her to change it. It will reflect badly on you if you don't.

If it's not factual, either leave it or send back a corrected copy saying your happy with that version. But don't explicitly point it out.

How would you handle making the correction if it was anyone else?

How would you respond to a colleague in this scenario? Just do that. A polite and quick

”Thanks, looks great. I spotted a typo in line 5, it should be…

best wishes”

‘That looks really good. There’s a typo on the second column though, but apart from that it looks great’

That's great, just one minor thing x should read y thanks.

Why are you worried about offending her? She's the one who cut you off.

It seems more like point scoring not to point it out. When I check things like this with people I want them to pick up the typos so they are less likely to make it into the final thing.

No need to mention it. Her newsletter, her typo. You can just be fabulous about it ‘Oh thanks for the piece’ without mentioning her typo. But as others have said, if you want to correct her grammar, there are heat-reducing ways of saying it above.

Off topic but a former friend recently revealed to me why she’d previously ghosted me. And it was NOTHING to do with the only reason I could wrack myself brains to come up with. And totally not my fault at all - she totally owned it and explained what her problem had been. Not everyone has the ovaries to do that though, but I hope your former friend fesses up at some point to demystify her issue with you!

Are you going to reply without making any reference to her not speaking to you? I’m not sure I could let it just hang like that. I’d be tempted to say something along the lines of “thank you for sharing the copy in advance, that’s really kind of you. To be honest, I was surprised to hear from you, I’m still mystified and very sad that you stopped speaking to me and wish you’d tell me why so that we could try and resolve things”

Thanks so much for the responses. I would definitely point it out if it was anyone else so that's what I'll do, using some of the suggested wording.

It's all very strange as to what happened between us - I absolutely and honestly don't have the first clue. I asked her at the time when it became obvious she was blanking me. She never responded and I wasn't going to ask again. As far as I can tell from the volunteering stuff we're involved in, she's fine. But I suppose you never really know what's happening for someone.

Anyway - I digress! Thanks again for the posts.

I don't really want to resolve things now - it's been 6 months. If we did patch things up, I would forever be on edge wondering if I was somehow going to be ex-communicated again for some mysterious reason!