Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Things My Grammar Taught Me

A repost from March, 2008, from my Myspace blog. Easily translatable for Facebook, for the most part. Enjoy! :)

Things my Grammar taught me...
Current mood: cultured

I know that, lately, I've been popping in on Myspace very sporadically and not really spending too much time here. So, last night, I blew off all the stuff I SHOULD have been doing (which, you know, I so RARELY do!), and I "hung out" here looking at my friends' updates and pictures, reading blogs, and marvelling at the throng of strange people (some I know, some I don't) who have requested me since they put my t-shirt picture up on the Morning Fix page.

And wow...there is nothing like a prolonged experience within the surging masses of "normal folks" that makes a person really appreciate the benefits of A) an English education and B) a job in editing.

Now, I don't typically go around correcting people's grammar and such (because, really--who has the time?) online. I do understand that it's a fairly informal medium, where people should be able to just write the way they speak, but receiving an email from "Bootyman"--who says he's from Naperville and makes 80-100K being "self-employed"--that says, "What's up, sexy. I like ur pic's, your hot" just drove the point too far home. I'm pretty sure this guy speaks EXACTLY the way he writes, and I'm probably not the first girl to NOT be all that impressed.

So, having spent a year or two teaching people who would rather be anywhere else but in my class some of the finer points of writing like a grown-up, I've decided to pass a quick 5 points on to those unfortunate enough to visit my silly blog in the hopes of finding something insightful or, at the very least, entertaining.

Top 5 Annoying Grammatical Errors Typically Found on Myspace (or, "How NOT to look retarded in front of pretty much the whole world"):

5) Textspeak. Come on, people, I get it when you are sending text messages and you either have to conserve space or or your thumbs. But when you have a whole computer in front of you, with a full QWERTY keyboard, it's just annoying.

4) When to use "I" vs when to use "me." - I promise you, sometimes "me" is the correct way to refer to yourself. For example, when you caption those pictures, folks, you are most often going to refer to yourself as an object: "Kari, Donella, and ME at Duran Duran last fall," NOT "Kari, Donella, and I..." Not sure? Take the rest of the people out and insert the implied subject: "This (subject) is a picture of ME (object) at Duran Duran last fall." You wouldn't say, "...a picture of I..."
3) Let's spell it together, people: D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y. How to remember this? The word "finite" is smack in the middle. I know millionaires who get this wrong, and it makes them look uneducated.

2) The word "YOUR" is possessive; it does not mean "you are": "I like your (the ones that belong to you) shoes." The word "YOU'RE" is a contraction of the words "YOU" and "ARE": "You're (you are) a complete dork."

1) Using an apostrophe also indicates possession, NEVER a plural: "Kari's (the ones belonging to her) shoes." It also makes a contraction of a noun + IS: "It's (it is) lame to hang out on Myspace when you should be sleeping." It is NOT used to make a word plural (more than one): "I have lots of pic's on my page" is incorrect.

So there you go, folks. Go forth and use your newfound grammatical prowess with style. And no...you're not getting credit for this, unless you count the warm, fuzzy feeling you'll get when you confidently place your apostrophes and when all the cute chicks on Myspace are awed and amazed at yer perfick grahmarr.

And hey...for the record, I never proofread my own work...:P

1 comment:

  1. Me either. (Or should that be , either I?) Text spelling and phonetic spelling bothers me too!

    ReplyDelete