Every now and then, people have to stand up for what they
believe in, right?
I recently have gotten into several Facebook status fights
with people I don’t even know, trying to defend my views on homosexuality.
This, in and of itself, is a whole different column. But on my daily Internet
ramblings and even the non-Internet ones I unfortunately come across some other
form of ignorance. And not the “I hate Muslims because I listen only to
Republican debates” kind of ignorance. The “I don’t like/don’t know proper
grammar” kind of ignorance. And, of course, I have to fight it.
Now, I’m a journalism major. But I know there are others
out there who give a damn about looking intelligent and who don’t spend hours a
week in a newsroom. I’ve written about it before and I will write it again! If
you are trying to hold an email conversation, or fight with someone on
Facebook, or make a point…maybe I can key you in on a few little grammar
treasures.
This country has a language problem. I’m not talking
about the blatant misspelling of “Krusty Krab.” I don’t care that Toys “R” Us
is both frugal with letters and trying to confuse me. I’ll even let Fergie Ferg
and will.i.am spell it “‘t’ to the ‘a’ to the‘s-t-e-y.’”
No, we have a much greater problem, one so elementary
that even my 11 and 14-year-old brothers could spell it out for you.
My fellow speakers of the English language, allow me to
make one important distinction for you. “YOUR” AND “YOU’RE” ARE NOT THE SAME WORD.
I encounter the confusion of these two words on a daily
basis. Facebook. Text messages. E-mails. Tweets. Status updates. Even
advertisements and ABC 6 special reports. Apparently, everyone and their mother
wants to make me cringe.
So for you grammar heathens, I’m going to review what we
learned in first grade. We’re talking about “Schoolhouse Rock”-type lessons, folks.
Stop eating Play-Doh and coloring outside the lines and listen. “Your” is
possessive. It indicates something that belongs to the person you are
addressing. It can be singular or plural. Example: Your grammar is atrocious.
“You’re” is a contraction of the words “you “and “are.”
It’s a being verb. Example: You’re making me question how intelligent you are when
you butcher the English language.
Please do not use these words interchangeably. You look
like an idiot to anyone who knows better if you do, and your English teacher
may or may not have a heart attack. Furthermore, I become ill and am forced to
cease all physical activity for at least five minutes when people shorten
either “you’re” or “your” to simply “ur.” Last I checked (and I am a
religion major as well), Ur was an ancient Mesopotamian city that flourished between 2030 and 1980
BCE. So unless you are discussing the book of Genesis with me, please take that
extra effort to move your thumbs just a little bit more and include all of the
letters. Correctly. Just imagine how stupid we’d all look if we decided to be
lazy and omit the letters “y,” “o,” and “e” in our everyday life. Nt nly
wuld it lk quit prpstrus, but I wuld als g insan.
Another infuriating thing I encounter is a misuse of
possessives. I guess this goes along with the whole your/you’re thing but bear
with me. Apostrophes. They are great. They indicate possession or a
contraction. But sometimes people like to add them into a plural form of
something – for example, “The Rotuno-Johnson’s are coming to dinner.” Oh
really? Now, if you were thinking you would know that you do not need an
apostrophe unless the Rotuno-JohnsonS are bringing the Rotuno-Johnson’S cats to
dinner. See what I did there? Plurals don’t need apostrophes. If I were to put
apostrophe’s in all the plural’s of all the word’s people would have confused
brain’s because they would think all of my word’s have something that belongs
to them. That is just silly.
To avoid future silliness, my colleagues, please do what
you can to use you’re brain’s. Ouch. Mine is hurting because of that sentence…
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