I find it obnoxious when a commenter whines about a single word in the first line of a long article. It's hard to imagine any reason for that beyond "look at how good of a complainer I am".
I think he was trying to be ironic by being picky and pedantic about the exact meaning of a word, while spelling it wrong at the same time. I took it as a successful attempt at self deprecating humor, by criticizing "clever writers" while ignoring the squiggly red line his spelling corrector drew under the word he was talking about.
