Their Not Interchangeable and Never Will Be
If you caught the grammatical error in my post title, Hallelujah! We can be friends.
Lately, I’m finding more and more people simply don’t take the time to use the words there, their and they’re in their proper context. Frankly, unless you’re in grade 2 and have yet to learn the subtleties of grammar and pronunciation, you really have no excuse. There, I said it.
Now, the odd slip I can understand; sometimes while leaving a hurried comment on Facebook or a favourite blog, I too find myself making a few mistakes. But I’m usually a goodie-two-shoes and re-read my submission to make sure that it’s free of errors, because I have this silly notion that intelligence is constantly conveyed in everything that we do. Plus, I wouldn’t want a friend of a friend of a friend to see my comment on Facebook and think, “Wow, she’s dumb.”
I’m not going to insult you by posting the different uses of the three words; I’m under the assumption that we all know what they mean and how to correctly insert them into a sentence. What I am going to say, especially to the violators, is please, take a moment to proofread your work. Anal-retentive perfectionists such as myself (who clearly have a lot of time on their hands) take offense to those who don’t show respect for the English language. Some actually exhibit a marked rise in blood pressure when confronted with this popular grammatical error. Trust me, they’re out there.
While I’m bashing people, I may as well list my other communication-related pet peeves:
1. Using LOL (Laugh out Loud) after every other word to convey your emotions. As in:
OMG, lol, that was soooo funny. I have to go to my bf’s tonight, lol, and I’ll tell him what you said, lol. Can you come out tomorrow night, lol, should be fun, lol.
I actually know someone who writes like this, lol, and she has been blocked from my Facebook, lol.
2. writing complete sentences without using capital letters where necessary, especially on words like i, sunday, asap, etc.
Seriously, unless you’re writing a grocery list, use capital letters to begin sentences and for proper names. There’s a reason why millions upon millions of people do this – it’s because WE’RE NOT LAZY and respect others too much to complain about the effort it takes to press the Shift key. And by the way – omitting capital letters from your correspondence doesn’t make you look cool or kitschy – it makes you look like a dumbass. okay, i said it. on to the next.
3. People who say, “I could care less.” The expression, friends, is “I couldn’t care less.” If you could care less, that means you do care, if even just a little, because there is still room for caring. And since there is no level of caring measurement indicated, we actually have no idea how much you could care less. As such, we must hypothesize how much you do in fact care. You see? Opens up a can of worms, if you ask me.
And by the way – do you have any grammatical pet peeves?
LOL is my signature!
Ha ha ha, but you don't abuse it!!!
i totally wrote this out proper LOL with caps and everything LOL but then i went back and changed it. LOL errr this is not as easy as it looks lol. For real though, good post. I get what your saying, people who overkill LOL drive me insane! Also the facebook messages, like on the occasion I get it you used your phone and auto correct is not your buddy – but all the freaking time. Mind you I make those mistakes too but not every single time I have a conversation!
If I would forward this to my friends (or is that friend's?)without your (you're) name, they would think I wrote it. LOL. My absolute pet peeve is "I could care less" and it drives me crazy when people use words like they're, their and there incorrrectly. Almost as much as I hate you're and your (and ur)and apostrophes. Hello? An apostrophe is used to show posession, not plural! Thanks for writing this. Now if someone tells me to chill, I'll send them along to you!
WOW! I LOVE this post! Thanks! You succinctly said what I am always thinking. I'm just like you – I actually 'edit' my text messages – can you get any more lame than that? I've seen grammar, and any respect or effort to make it better, go down hill over the years. Being a teacher now, I am slapped in the face with these errors all the time, and yes, it does boil my blood. I am actually beginning to see grammatical and spelling errors in print ads – a definite reason to boycott!Anyways, thanks for a great post! You rock!Oh, one of my favourites is 'should of', 'would of' or 'could of'. It's HAVE, not OF!!!!Rant complete. :)
Your post was amazing. I totally agree with you and all of those things drive me crazy too. My biggest grammatical pet peeve is when somebody uses "irregardless". That is not a word! I know they think they are using an opposite by adding "ir" to the beginning, but they're wrong and it drives me crazy!Thank you again for your post. You always make me laugh! :)
"Do you have any grammatical pet peeves?" That is a question that I could spend pages and pages answering!My first grammatical pet peeve is the improper use of apostrophes. The girl's are going to the lake to catch frog's. NAILS ON A CHALKBOARD! But my newest pet peeve is teenagers who misspell words on purpose! the gurls r goen 2 the lake 2 cach froggz. That really makes my blood boil!Thanks for helping me realize I'm not alone on this issue! And by the way, I never LOL! I :) instead! I hope that doesn't irritate you!
I love you. No really, I feel the same way! I thought I was the only person left on the planet who actually noticed all the errors out there. I hate all the things you said, but I have one that tops those even more: the overuse of the apostrophe. Just because a word ends with an S doesn't mean it should have an apostrophe in front of it! Plural words NEVER have an apostrophe, no matter what, no matter if it's a number, a string of letters, or anything else. Apostrophes mean something is missing from the word, like in a contraction, or the word is possessive. It looks like Michelle and -She- also understand the thing with the apostrophes, and I don't mean to be redundant in my comment. I started writing it before I read the other ones because I was so excited about your post. Thank you for posting this, you have absolutely made my day!
You guys are making me ROTFLMAO!(That's Roll on the Floor Laughing My Ass off, lol)I totally agree with all your points, in fact, I thought of bringing up the apostrophes, the your vs. you're debate and definitely the should/ would/ could HAVE, but I didn't want to come across too harsh. But we all know that those offenders are clueless and we should beat them with a stale breadstick!Another one that boils my blood? RECONFIRM. I can't tell you how many times I used to receive e-mails that said, "I'm just reconfirming our meeting this afternoon." HELLO! How can you reconfirm something? The definition of confirm is to re-check, so how can you re-re-check something? DUMBASS!
One thing that I have noticed in many of these comments (and I am guilty of too) is the overuse of the exclamation mark! Read back over the comments in this thread. HA!!!!!!!!!!
@ the brother – HA HA HA!!!!!You're right!!!! But we're a lively bunch and like to get our point across!!!! Have a nice day!!!!
I came over from DOCD and this is such a funny post! As I told her, I use lol quite a bit just to make sure that my tone is not misconstrued. As you probably well know, it's very hard to gauge tone in writing.
I am guilty of many of these.
I came across a big sale sign the other day that said: "Everything on sale *accept items with green tags".I was going to tell the lady at the cash of this little store, but then I felt bad that I might be insulting her if she was the one that made up the sign.
I soooooo agree (sooo is a pet peeve of mind) If you agree great, then leave the soooo out of the text and use it for when you actually speak to someone. Dido for "quotations"Another one is….people who use "texting" text when typing an e-mail…b/c, btw,LMAO…you know the ones.What happened to good old grammar!ttyl
WE CAN BE FRIENDS!! : )I just don't understand how after so many years, people don't know the difference. Really? Is it unintelligence, or just plain laziness? Either way it's unacceptable.* Note to self: go back and review all old blog posts for any grammatical errors before Lena unleashes on me. *
I am not a great speller nor am I a fantastic writer. HOWEVER, my pet peeve is when people spell ment as apposed to meant. ahhhhhh!
I second the apostrophe peeve. The overuse of the apostrophe is like an epidemic these days!I also hate to see grammatical errors and poor spelling on signage and in print ads because I imagine that people who don't know any better will follow those examples.My husband calls me "Hector the Corrector" (and as a sidenote to a previous commenter, he also says "irregardless" because he knows it drives me nuts)! Thanks for letting me know I'm not alone! Anal grammarians unite!
@CanDailyDeals – yeah I know you are!!!@Anonymous – bahaha, yes I'd probably not want to hurt her feelings either ;)@Rebecca – oops, I'm guilty of the "sooo" from time to time. I'll have to keep that one in check! ttyl@Soulla – oh, just go back and check, I don't know, the last three. Kidding!@Amanda – Hector the Corrector – HILARIOUS!!! Had me LOLing!
I hope i'm not one of those people but i have a feeling i am. So i appologize ahead of time.