How to make people like you - Obstacle #3: Being a spelling and grammar Nazi

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I can’t help it OK? It is literally my job to judge people on their writing and it is hard to turn it off once I leave the building.

There is one thing that people hate, and that’s having their spelling and/or grammar commented on. This is not optimal for making people like you.

Generally, I am pretty good at letting things slide. Casual, every day communication between friends does not absolutely need to be 100% accurate. I am victim to spelling errors and typos just like anyone else, but at least I know when I am wrong. There are only a few things that really get my goat. Like, really, really grind against my heart and no matter how much I try to hold it inside myself I can’t help but comment.

Youse

This is the biggest one for me. Are you all listening? The plural of “you” is just “you”! Adding an “s” to the end of the word does nothing except highlight your ignorance.

If you are worried about people not knowing if you are talking about “you” in the singular or plural (but trust me, they will. Context is everything), try tacking on “guys” to your sentence. For example, “are you guys coming to the beach later on?” – sounds a whole lot better than “are youse coming to the beach later on?”. “You all” does the same trick.

Apostrophes

A lot (notice how it’s two words?) of people find apostrophes difficult, and I can understand why. The rules are confusing. Some things you just have to rote learn and rote learning sucks.

There are two reasons why you would use an apostrophe, note how neither of them are to indicate plural:

1.     To indicate possession.

2.     To show that letters or words are missing (a contraction).

The main culprits that break the rules and confuse everyone:

• “Its” versus “it’s” (“Its” is the possessive but doesn’t take an apostrophe as it is a word in its own right, “it’s” is the contraction of “it is”).

• “Your” versus “you’re (“Your” is the possessive but again doesn’t take an apostrophe, “you’re” is the contraction of “you are”).

Could of

You could of done nuffink, ok? What you actually want to say is “could have” or “could’ve (a contraction!), but somewhere along the line you heard someone say “could’ve” but thought they said “could of”. Now you know better, so stop saying it or worse, gasp, writing it.

Definately

Seriously, there is no “a” in definitely. Definitely NO “A”.

I know I am preaching to the choir here and that everyone who reads this blog is already an expert on these topics. Also, I am pretty sure that I have made some sort of grammar or spelling error in this entry despite my best efforts and look forward to being corrected.