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eric the Lil' Devil (351)
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Haas the Addict (187) Bellatmot the Addict (179)
Christine 2 the Mercenary (131) Lei the Mercenary (124) Katie the Mercenary (115)
Yzabel the Virgin commented
Nice list, indeed. What makes me wonder whether I should laugh or cry is that I assume it is primarily addressed to native English users (I’m not, and I’ve been able to tell the difference between “your” and “you’re” since my first month of studying English, back when I was 11). It seems that the same phenomenon happens everywhere, though; I often get irritated with some people in my own country, when I see easily avoidable grammar mistakes on online pages or, worse, in printed texts.
To point 3, I’d like to add “people are also allowed to use a dictionary when they’re not sure”. No kidding, you’d think this is some weird and unknown tool. If “inpleasant” sounds weird to my ears, my friend the dictionary will easily point it to me, right?
Christine the Lioness chimed in with
Ahh, yes Yzabel. But using the dictionary actually takes some effort… I know several non-native English speakers who speak with less grammar mistakes than, well, Christopher. As you can see… he is refusing to respond to this post because he thinks the whole idea of actually being able to screw up grammar is ridiculous. According to him, as long as the listener understands what he means, no mistake has been made and his mission has been accomplished. 
Christopher the Pyro added
Grammer evolves based on mistakes, if enough people make the mistakes it eventually becomes the rule. We don’t speak english even remotely close to how we spoke it 100 years ago let alone 200 years ago or how the speak it in the UK.. and we won’t speak english the same a 100 years from now. Language evolves and changes, what is wrong during one time period can be right in others, it’s really rather irrelivant whether you speak or write it 100% correctly the truth is, as long as other people understand it’s all good. I like to focus on import subjects, like math and history rather then a subject that a bunch of random people set the rules for.
Christine the Lioness spake, and sayeth
Written language is a system. It is because language has structure and rules, that it is successful in terms of one person who has learned the system being able to communicate with someone else who knows the same system. So… like in math, which is an exact science, the characters you choose to represent values is important and must be exact… the words you choose and how you structure sentences also change the value, or meaning of what you are trying to convey. So the math thing is a good comparison. In addition, there is the perception that someone who can spell and write well is educated (it may not be true, but it is still a common perception), and educated people are more likely to get higher paying jobs, get into better colleges, etc. While it might not make a realistic difference as to how well a person will succeed at those things, not speaking and writing well is a way of basically handing someone a reason to weed you out and not hire you, not admit you, etc. Why not give yourself every possible advantage at getting what you want?
Christopher the Pyro quibbed this
So what u r saying is that u can’t understand what I am saying when I use the wrong word.. because the meaning of that word is different then the other correct one for that situation? Write?
Yzabel the Virgin penned this
To get on the “as long as people understand you” matter, I must say that grammar mistakes actually are confusing–at least for me. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m not a native English speaker, but seeing “you’re” instead of “your” seriously throws me off-balance for a second or two every time. Sure, I can understand the sentence; it just confuses me at first, and the feeling isn’t very pleasant (not to mention mistakes that are even more confusing than this one).
Evolution, alright. Unfortunately, the tendency seems to be rather to worsening than just evolution. I kid you not when I say there are words and sentences I’m not allowed to use when writing technical documents: my boss claims that our customers won’t understand them. For words and grammar rules that I was able to understand when I was 13, I think this is seriously worrying.
Then also, I’m from a country where we created a whole institution to take care of grammar rules and language quality, so it’s likely not surprising that I feel this way.
Christopher the Pyro commented
Yzabel,
I would hate to think your confusion comes strictly from the fact you are from france so I’m going to assure you that it comes from the fact that you are not a native english speaker. Many times in english we substitute a word we think will work just because we’re not sure about the word we are looking for. (Most of us are not anal enough to look it up in the dictinary) I think most native english speakers automatically apply the correct meaning for a word one for the correct situation.. (same with there and their). The english language is just so complex and has so many rules and words that I think it can easy to learn but very difficult to perfect. A good example of the of complexity is this:
Take a verb like climb. The rules of English allow you to generate the forms climbs, climbed, climbable, and climbing, the nouns climb and climber (and their plurals climbs and climbers), compounds such as climb-down and climbing frame, and phrasal verbs like climb on, climb over, and climb down. Now, here?s the question you?ve got to answer: are all these distinct words, or do you lump them all together under climb?
That this is not a trivial question can be proved by looking at half a dozen current dictionaries. You won?t find two that agree on what to list. Almost every word in the language has this fuzzy penumbra of inflected forms, separate senses and compounds, some to a much greater extent than climb. To take a famous case, the entry for set in the Oxford English Dictionary runs to 60,000 words. The noun alone has 47 separate senses listed. Are all these distinct words?
The problem doesn?t stop there. English speakers not only know words, they know word-forming elements, such as the ending -phobia for some irrational fear. A journalist rushing to meet a deadline might take a word he knows, like Serb, and tack on the ending to make Serbophobia. He?s just added a word to the language (probably only temporarily), but can he really be said to have that word in his vocabulary? If nobody ever uses it again, can we legitimately count it? By reversing the coining process, a reader of the newspaper can easily work out the word?s origin and meaning. Has the reader also added a word to his vocabulary?
So basicaly the fact you get confused I think has more to do with the complexity and number of words in the laungage as opposed to you not understanding the language.
Christine the Lioness hunt n' pecked this
Um… no, Christopher. She’s confused because you have no idea what you’re talking about… Sure, multiple meaning words can be confusing, but the example she gave was not that. Most people, native speakers and non-native speakers will run through the list of meanings for a multiple meaning word and pick the right one that fits in the sentence. She’s talking about homonyms (words with the same sound and sometimes, but not always different spellings). Because most people, when they see the word “you’re,” know it means “you are.” So they cognitively and instinctually base their understanding of that sentence on “you are.” When someone replaces “you’re” with “your,” the mind already knows the meaning of “your” and the person bases their understanding on the meaning of “your” which is completely different than the meaning of “you’re.” Native speackers are more in tuned to being able to quickly realize that the word is incorrect because an identical sounding word should have been used in its place. For non-native speakers, this is more difficult to recognize as quickly. But don’t get me wrong, I’m a native English speaker and I find it jarring as well. The mind processes ‘hearing’ spoken language differently than it processes ‘reading’ written language. “You’re” and “your” sound exactly the same when speaking, so it doesn’t matter if the speaker knows the difference. Someone could speak the words, “You’re coat is green.” and no one listening would have trouble understanding. It wouldn’t even matter if the person talking even knew the word “your” existed with its correct spelling. But once you write it, it becomes important because our brains assign meaning to words based not on how they sound, but how they are spelled.
Yes, language evolves. But the refusal to simply learn the correct spellings of words is not evolution. It’s laziness. Like any progressive system, language evolves to become more concise, more clear, more reflective of the ideas it is intended to convey. It doesn’t evolve to become more muddled and confusing.
Just for Christopher’s sake… here are some other commonly mixed up homonyms/phrases:
altogether and all together; affect and effect; allowed and aloud; allusion and illusion; already and all ready; counsel and council; capital and capitol; led and lead; and principle and principal. Other really common and confusing mistakes are the difference between “lay” and “lie.” Lots of people use those incorrectly. “Lay” is a transitive verb, so it has to have another word to qualify it. “Lay” means “to place” and “lie” means “to recline.” “Lay” also means to have sex… so “I laid on the couch” actually means “I had sex on the couch,” but most people, confusing it with “lie” would think that sentences means “I reclined on the couch.” And another mistake is not knowing the difference between “fewer” and “less.” “Fewer” is used for countable things and “less” is used for non-countable things. “Christine has fewer gray hairs than Christopher.” We can count the actual number of gray hairs. OR… we can say, “Christine has less gray hair than Christopher.” In this sentence, we say “hair” instead of “hairs,” making “hair” non-count. Therefore, it is correct to say “less” instead of “fewer.”
Christopher the Pyro got all philosophical
I think your just defensive because your realizing that knowing writing, and spelling and other language skills.. are fairly worthless skills.
Christine the Lioness quibbed this
Aww, you got me, Christopher. Once again, your uncanny knack of seeing through all my bullshit and really getting to the heart of my psychological motivations astounds and impresses me. Ooops… I meant… “…your ridiculously aggravating attempt to skirt the issue and instead imply that I’m defensive when you know I’m completely right is an example of how trite, stubborn, and narrow-minded you can be.” I guess the first time I tried, I used some of the wrong words… but I guess I didn’t have to clarify… you probably understood what I mean.
Christopher the Pyro commented
Why don’t you tell everybody how close you came to beating me at chess last night . Learn how to add, subtract and play chess then you can give me some english lessons.
Christine the Lioness commented
I came very close to beating Christopher at chess last night. There. Are you happy now, pumpkin?
Christopher the Pyro quibbed this
lol
Well since the game ended on move #5, she must have been going to checkmate me on turn #6.
Christine the Lioness got all philosophical
Yes, checkmating Christopher on move #6 was the plan, but that’s beside the point.
This is an example of how Christopher diverts attention away from the real issue and tries to make it about something completely irrelevant and unrelated. He is very twisty and manipulative like that… I deal with it all the time…
But back to the real issue– grammar is importnat! Where the hell is Rob when I need him?
Christopher the Pyro commented
Listen just becuase Rob is as mislead as you are on this paticular subject doesn’t make you right!! 
Lei the Mercenary thought this
Another common grammar mistake is the way some people spell the possessive pronouns “yours,” “ours” or “hers” with apostrophe “s” (i.e. your’s our’s her’s) which is wrong actually. For instance, in the sentence, “The fault was her’s.” It should be “The fault was hers.”
Splendored the Groupie remarked
The WORST mistake one can make in my book is to use the non-word “nother” - NOTHER IS NOT A WORD!!! Such as, “That’s a whole ‘nother’ story.” No, it is a whole OTHER story or it is ANOTHER story, but not a whole nother!! One of my worst pet peeves!
Christopher the Pyro penned this
ok.. meg.. WHO FUCKING CARES.. seriously I mean.. if all you have to do in life is pick apart ’s that is BAD… if you keep it up your going to end up like Christine.. trust me that isn’t a good thing…. Splendored.. I think “nother” is a word, the fact is if you can comprehend it’s a word.. it’s just slang, like “Ain’t” and “alot” You people are sooo anal about your grammer!!
Christine the Lioness hunt n' pecked this
Apparently, Christopher… some people do care. And quite frankly, there are a lot (not “alot”) of people who aspire to be like me… so that can’t be all bad. At least when we all get together, we speak and write intelligently!
Trouble the Pirate got all philosophical
This horse is not dying? It is developing a spanking fetish though? You all have very good points:
Unlike authors, we don?t have editors at our beck and call. When we are trying to get a point across, we don?t always stop to proofread it (see #14 where Christine asserts that ?grammar is importnat!) This is only one source of error.
Christine is very correct in ?laying? blame for incorrect grammar on ?laziness?; it?s the largest contributor to grammatical mistakes. Language is a system for conveying your thoughts to another human being, and a system is only effective if there is a structure, rules, and adherence to them. As Yzabel points out, use a dictionary when in doubt? If you take shortcuts you force the reader to bear the onus of additional interpretation, which will only hinder the communication process.
I learned what?s pompously called the ?queen?s English? in school, and usually cringe when I hear or see portions of it bastardized. However, I am from the Caribbean and therefore completely competent at fathering some severely retarded sounding and looking forms of it myself? When I?m in the mood? The difference is, that I have made myself well aware of the correct way it should be written? This is the only aspect that can negate the ?laziness? factor.
Christopher does make points in comments #3 and 7 (although Christine dismisses them as off-topic.) The English language was derived from Latin, German, and other European root words, and is currently largely made up of words ?borrowed? from other languages (especially the French?) At one time or another, each of these words meant precious little to those who didn?t understand that language. These words had to be accepted into popular use through the colloquial process, before they could become card-carrying members of the most confusing language on earth. Likewise, the ?invented? or slang words have to go through the same process. For the most part, these words are meant to fill niches, more so when they more accurately portray the meaning for which they are used. Many times an accepted word is more efficient at conveying a clear and concise meaning, but usually it is those of us who cling to the archaic forms, who slow the evolutionary process.
Language, like a ?constitution? should be flexible enough that it can evolve to suit the era and its users.
Lastly, I love all the surreptitiously seditious comments you guys inject in your comments? Oh, and Christine, maybe ?lots? of people, would be better than ?a lot? of people? More efficient? ?Many? people would be even better?
Splendored the Groupie said this
But…the slang words you’ve mentioned, usually do “come about” because of laziness. Instead of “Hey you,” people say “Yo!” Instead of saying, “I am not” people say “I ain’t” - however in the case of “nother” - this isn’t a shortend/lazy version of anything. In any instance you can use “nother” you can use “other” - people honestly just think it’s a word. It ISN’T!
Christopher the Pyro asserted
Well if it isn’t a word.. I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be a word!
Matt the Groupie spake, and sayeth
Convoluded is not a word. You’re after convoluted.
o-juice the Virgin chimed in with
I can’t stand the misuse of “their”, “they’re” and “there”. I’m not a native English speaker either (first language being Afrikaans) and it puzzles me how native speakers still manage to mangle and abuse it. The worst offenders are of course self-styled journalists, or rather, bloggers, who are often just ordinary people and certainly don’t go to many lengths to disprove it by constantly failing to proof-read and spell-check the content they post. I agree that laziness is the the biggest contributing factor to this, but with a little practice I’m sure most people will be able to overcome their spelling deficiencies or at least learn how to touch-type properly to prevent the odd typo. ;-P
Christopher the Pyro quibbed this
Oj,
We misuse it because it doesn’t matter.. if we are speaking it is irrelivent.. and if we are reading and we arn’t compeltely stuck on others abilities not to use the world “there” right our minds just substitute the correct “there” into the sentence. So unless your excessively composive and anal about grammer.. you would never even notice. There have been other beat downs about people bitching about grammer in the blogsphere.. I tend to think we are hyper evolving grammer here.. not hurting it.
Christine the Lioness commented
Christopher really needs to throw in the towel on this one… No is agreeing with him. The reason his mind substitutes the correct “there” even when it’s misspelled, is because he doesn’t know the difference and he thinks that it’s already spelled correctly! LOL!
ticklebug the Groupie added
A lot of those are quite obvious to me, but quite frankly, if I don’t proofread what I type, I find myself typing “your” instead of “you’re” just because I’m in a hurry and lazy as sin. I do the same with “their”, “there”, and “they’re”. I know how to use each of them, but when I’m in a rush, I’m careless. I think most of us that have had a proper education are guilty of careless typos.
I can’t tell you how much I refer to “dictionary.com” to get the correct spelling for words that I type into my blog. My spelling is really bad, and it irritates me that when I ask my husband how to spell a word that he doesn’t know how to spell it either!
Just yesterday, I was typing an email and had to look up the freakin’ difference between “affected” and “effected”. Some things, now matter how much I look them up to “re-learn”, just never stick in my head.
ticklebug the Groupie asserted
After reading the other comments, I have to say I’m with Christopher on this one - especially with the usage of “nother”. No, it’s not a word. I just use it because I like the way it sounds.
I have a blog too, and sometimes I even make up words and my own grammar rules as I go along.
However, before you grammar freaks jump all over my case, if I were typing a document at work or writing on a professional level, I would be extremely anal about using improper English.
But outside that, I don’t care if I piss people off.
Christine the Lioness penned this
Well, that’s the difference between you and Christopher. You realize you’re being lazy about typos and don’t feel the need to fix them. He refuses to believe they’re typos because even when he spells something wrong, he thinks he’s right! LOL
terry the Virgin chimed in with
Dear Christopher,
I’ve developed an online grammar check (free for all) that will help with many of the mistakes you mention. It is accessible at http://www.spellcheckplus.com
Best,
terry
yb the Virgin spake, and sayeth
Great to hear that it all obvious to you guys and girls but, as someone who’s English is not is first ( or second) language and that is pretty dyslexic in all the 4 language I speak totally fluently (how many do you know ?). I find people that just assume that everybody is lazy and just doesn’t make an effort quite offensive.
So maybe you couldn’t, just try an understand that not everybody can write in English as good as you do this way you could save yourself some grief
YB
P.S.
Good to this site Goggling for Sell/Sale as I just can nether know when to use which Nor can I know if ‘s s’ ect’
ProphetJoe the Irreverent stated
yb — here are some general guidelines:
’s can be a singular possessive such as: John’s car.
It is also a contraction for “es” when indicating many or a group of objects, such as: hundred of DVD’s or PC’s, or the 1970’s and ’80’s.
s’ is a plural possessive — when the subject is plural or otherwise ends in “s” — such as: the Jones’ house, the parents’ objections, etc.
For example:
The student’s belongings were missing. — one student, many belongings
The students’ belongings were missing. — many students, many belongings
Hope that helps, Amigo!
Puddycat the Virgin hunt n' pecked this
Nice to see a bunch of grammar geeks like myself out there 
)
I would like to take the opportunity to note that “less” and “fewer” are not randomly interchangeable. Less is a quantifier used for uncountable nouns, e.g. I smother my cheeseburgers with less ketchup than my husband. Compare this to: I eat fewer cheeseburgers than my husband. Cheeseburgers you can count, so you say “fewer” to convey relative quantity.
In the name of descriptive linguistics though, if the general population starts to use it as a common rule, that’s progress and also the reason why we speak English today instead of Protogermanic (and its predecessors).
Puddy
k;l;l; the Virgin uttered
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