Saturday, November 8, 2008

I Am A Grammar Nazi

Everyone makes a grammar mistake every once in awhile. Even I have made one. Or two. I know we are not all blessed with the same level of either brain power or education. But most of us made it through high school. By the time most of us got out of high school we had been subjected to many many hours of English classes.

Unfortunately, for some those English classes did not do a lot of good. What is perplexing me right at the moment is how can someone write a sentence with the following mistakes....

"If your gonna ask what there doing why dont you just do what there doing if your so curious?"

How hard is it to remember that "they're", "their" and "there" have 3 different meanings? And to use them appropriately?

How hard is it to remember that "your" and "you're" have 2 different meanings?

Now, I am totally cognizant of the fact that it is easy to make the mistake of typing "your" when you mean "you're". I've made that mistake myself. But when I make it it is a fluke, a typo.

I am aware of someone who has seriously degraded thinking, she's on the left side of the IQ Bell Curve. She made it through high school but any higher education was not feasible due to acceptance standards. But still, how does one write paragraph after paragraph of barely coherent sentences verbalizing barely coherent thoughts and not realize that the word they are looking for is "you're" not "your"?

I get the concept of making your own rules sometimes when it comes to grammar. I do that. Like I think the correct thing to do when using quotation marks is to do this, "quote." As in the period goes inside the quotation mark. I put it outside. Why? I dunno. I think it makes more sense, I guess. So, this is a conscious choice, not something that occurs because of degrading thinking.

Anyway, if me writing about they're, there, their, your and you're causes just one person to pay attention to this all too common mistake I will have done my bit to serve humanity for the day.

But now I must go serve my own humanity by going swimming. It's only 48 out there. I hope it's doable. Yikes, that's another one. "Its" and "it's". "Its" is a possessive pronoun, "it's" is a contraction of "it is". How hard is that to remember? I suppose I shouldn't be so judgemental. It can't be easy to go through life with degraded thinking.

Yikes again. That's another one. "Through" and "threw". Even with degraded thinking how can one mix up those two words?

5 comments:

Cupcake Parade said...

yur goin to have to stop picking on me if your're gonna be my bff.

Durango said...

Sorry, I've not detected you committing any bad grammar sins. Til now.

Anonymous said...

Mister - You may be a grammer nazi, but your punctation is slackersvile.

Durango said...

Dean Mister Anonymous,
There is no 'e' in grammar. And there is no such word as 'punctation'. But, thanks for the input.

-1- said...

Hello. I just stumbled upon your post and a few things caught my eye:

1. Once in A WHILE (http://www.dailywritingtips.com/a-while-vs-awhile/)

2. You "dunno"? Seriously, does this excuse for a word belong in a blog post about the proper use of language?

3. "These two words", not "those".

Greetings from Europe where English is not our first language but we seem to be better at it than you lot sometimes. No offense meant, though. We Grammar Nazis just can't help ourselves as you surely understand.