You’re spelling sux
Ah, the Internet. Has there ever been a better medium for asserting one’s superiority over others? I mean, from the comfort of mom’s basement your home, you can sit at your computer and destroy others’ lives with your superior knowledge and unmatched ability to cut people down. Funsies!
To keep the proud flaming tradition going, I’m offering up a very quick guide to spelling errors most frequently made in the comments section of this blog. Learn these easy spelling rules, and not only will others be daunted by your amazing wit, they’ll think you finally mastered fourth grade.
Here it is, quick and dirty. Feel free to print this out and tape it to your monitor for quick reference. (Disclaimer: I’m by no means an expert in grammar or spelling. I did, however, finish elementary school.)
Its vs. It’s
Its: Belonging to it
It’s: Contraction of “it is”
Usage: It’s certain Jessica Simpson’s new reality show will tank. Maybe they can give her rack its own spin-off, though.
There/Their/They’re
There: Mostly indicates location, or a certain reference point
Their: Belonging to them
They’re: Contraction of “they are”
Usage: There certainly has been a lot of ink spilled on this “Jon and Kate Plus 8″ crap. Their kids are going to be traumatized for life knowing they’re the products of a fame-hungry, possum-haired bitch and a horny zombie.
Your vs. You’re
Your: Belonging to you
You’re: Contraction of “you are”
Usage: Your blog posts are the lamest pieces of s*** ever written, Hmac. You’re nothing but an entitled bitch sullying the good name of journalists, I mean, bloggers, everywhere.
Apostrophes: Often, but not always, indicate possession (also used in contractions. See above re: it’s, they’re and you’re)
Wrong usage: Britney Spears ate all the donut’s. (Ate the donut’s what?)
Correct usage: Britney Spears ate all the donuts, and many of the pies, too.
There! Easy, right? Trick of the trade: knowing how to spell simple, commonly used words allows you to pepper your comments with fun, nonreal words like “hella,” “funsies” and “nonreal” without anyone questioning your intelligence.
Armed with your new knowledge, you’re free to pick out your best fictional badass name (Tyler Durden is a good one — so tough! — but Travis Bickle works, too), and get to work proving you’re better than everybody. So get to it! There’s a whole wide world of Internet users just waiting to be flamed by you.
(Come back next week and we’ll cover misapplied quotation marks used to indicate sarcasm!)
Responses to "You’re spelling sux"
thank you, hmac. ur makin tha wurld a better place.
You are my heroine.
UHL UR BAZE R BOLUNG TU UZ
BTW:
Fresno, Your Cool
Coming 2010
One thing I have noticed on any forum is the fact that most people just don’t care how they come across online. They don’t care if they sound ignorant. They figure they’re online so why give a crap? I could go on and on about how I feel towards ‘texting.’ Nothing irritates me more than people who can’t just type out the word — especially when it’s as short as you. Why shorten it anymore? U look lame.
Nice work here, Heather. I’m quite fond of using yr for both you’re and your, but that’s more hipster code (read: riot grrrl) than anything.
Proposed topic for future related post: punctuation basics, including commas, semicolons, and colons.
I’m sensing that, in your past, you were hurt by grammar. How else to explain the bitterness?
I taught English. I write for a partial living.
The mistakes I make I’ve made for my entire life.
I have NO clue on using ‘quotes’ “properly.”
I have absolutely zero-control of my hyphens.
I never ever spell strength correctly, always typing stregnth first.
But one of my worst flaws is your first point, the its/it’s controversy. Yikes, I’m terrible at that, always opting for what I consider the possessive it’s, as in “give Jessica’s rack it’s own spin-off.” (correct hyphen use, yay!)
Ugh. Even for educated dudes like me, it’s tough out there. thanks for keeping us in czech.
How about the oxford/serial comma? It would appear Jeffresno is a fan. Me, myself and I … we don’t agree.
Me fail English? That’s umpossible!
The oxford comma is — for the most part — totally useless. I’m with Mike Oz. And Vampire Weekend.
Now: if your getting into colons an semi_colon’s, thats prolly the hardest stuff.
Mega- “cold blooded”.
[I've realized recently, that I use the word
'definitely' a lot. I know because I misspell it
every time.The little red underline appears, reminding me that I used it again. Then I re-type it.]
What you interpret as bitterness, I see as a desire to make the Internet a better place.
No, you’re mine. Love your blog.
(I once used “sneak peak” instead of “sneak peek” on this blog and was promptly corrected by a commenter. It was irritating at first, but it stayed with me, and I haven’t gotten it wrong since. I think.)
You missed my favorite Internetism, “loose” for “lose,” as in “He will loose his license for drunk driving.”
Although I don’t know if you should be giving lectures on correct usage after writing “undrank” last week.
Yes! Thank you, Jaguar, for demonstrating exactly the type of flaming I’m talking about.
Don’t you feel so fantastic right now knowing that you completely destroyed every point I tried to make in this post by pointing out my failings in a previous post?
The power you hold right now … I’m sure it’s intoxicating. I couldn’t be more jealous.
Oxford comma FTW!
Yes! Tremble before the mighty power of my grammar!
I’m a foreigner but I still cannot stand bad grammar !
It’s, “buy locally”. Not “buy local”.
“My brother and I … ” and not “Me and my brother …”.
Oops. I forgot to thank you for the nice article, Heather. Sorry.
Yes, I completely agree with you.
This is great! I can’t believe that I just spent the last eleven months in school correcting my grammar when all I needed to do was do more commenting on the Beehive. Thanks Hmac, you’re the best.
PS Last night was fun, can’t wait to do it again.
The serial comma FTW, and here’s why:
Failing to use the serial comma results in semi-regular ambiguities, which are addressed (per Chicago and other style manuals) by adding the serial comma. In other words, you will end up with a mixed, inconsistent style.
For instance, look at this book dedication:
To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.
You need the serial comma (probably):
To my parents, Ayn Rand, and God.
Using the serial comma almost never leads to ambiguity. In the rare cases that it causes ambiguity, the problem is most likely a poorly written sentence. Using the serial comma results in a more consistent style. AP style be damned!