Here's one I've had brewing for a while. Finally time to dust off the "draft" and git-r-done...
Okay... Time for a brief grammar primer from your old buddy Jay. Please make a note of the various correct usages and spellings to avoid further visits from "Mr. Pain in the Ass Language Nitpicker". To those on the left side of the aisle, particularly those suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome, keep this list handy to avoid making embarrassing mistakes when calling President Bush "stupid" or "moron" or other synonym for less-than-intelligent...
1. It's definitely. Not definately.
2. "You're" is the contraction for "you are". "Your" is the second person possessive.
3. "Their" is the third person possessive; "they're" is the contraction for "they are" and "there" is a pronoun or "dummy subject".
4. "It's" is the contraction for "it is". "Its" is the possessive form for an inanimate object.
5. "Weather" is rain/snow/sun/etc. "Whether" is a conjunction used to propose the first of two (or more) options.
6. "Where" refers to a place. "Wear" is what you do with clothing. "Were" is the past-tense for the first person plural.
7. "Embarrass" has two "r"s. Had to spell-check this one to make sure I wasn't putting up any spelling errors... :)
8. Other correct spellings of words that trip me up: "accommodate" and "occasion". Two "m"s, one "s", respectively, that give me trouble...
9. To. Too. Two. They're different. There is a time and place for each. One must be careful how one places their homophones.
10. Can't think of a #10, but the anal-retentive side of me couldn't let the list be only 9 items long...
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15 comments:
10. Disenfranchise - it does not mean "unhappy" or whatever other random meaning its having applied to it at the moment.
It means to be denied a right of citizenship.
(This came up at Unc's the other day.)
10. Decimate - to reduce by one tenth.
OOOOOooooh! Good one Brad.
Here's another: Mayhem. It's actually a very technical crime consisting of the removal of limbs, not the general pandemonium it tends to stand in for...
I always have trouble with affect and effect. It's a mental block of some kind.
Who, whom, whose, and who's.
And the way some people use "myself" for "me".
Too far out of school to remember all the rules!
#11. The word "literally" does not mean "figuratively". In fact, it's not even close.
To say "Britney Spears literally exploded onto the scene" is to show the world what a dunce you are.
Literally.
Likewise, anyone using any of the following phrases needs to be slapped.
"I literally cried my eyes out."
"That Al Gore movie literally bored me to pieces."
"I literally fucked the shit out of that broad from Revere last night."
OK, so maybe that second one could be legit. But, dude????
That should read "third one" not "second one".
Although...
Most of them use the "spell-checker" on microcrap, and spell-checker does not do well at reading minds to figure out what the dumbos wanted to say.
Oh, dear me. Jay, have you been reading too many of my posts on northeastshooters?
I thought I was the only one who cringed at the horrid spelling displayed these days on the internet.
Nice to know there's another grammarian out there. :-)
Like definitely, hypocrisy has no "a".
I'll be happy if folks would just get the difference between loser and looser.
Then and than. One is an indicator of time; one is and indicator of a comparison.
...AN indicator.
I am a spelling and grammar whiz, but I cannot type worth a damn before my second cup of coffee.
How about when folks use "less" when they should be using "fewer" . . . and the one that really drives me ape-shit is when the word "data" is used in the singular. "Data" is the plural form of "datum". Aaaaaarrrrrgggggghhhhhhhh !!!!!!!
And I had my two mugs of dark french roast, each with an added shot of espresso. No, I don't "do" Star-clucks . . . I brew my own.
""Weather" is rain/snow/sun/etc. "Whether" is a conjunction used to propose the first of two (or more) options."
And "wether" is a castrated ram.
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