So, for the sake of the world I've put together a little list of things people often spell or use wrong. If you make any of these mistakes, don't feel too bad, we all do. We do a lot more talking than writing, so while we know the sounds of the thoughts we want to express, sometimes we don't do so well at the execution. Most of these come to you courtesy of the 2009 AP Style guide. If you don't have one and you look to be doing any amount of professional writing in the future (even if you're not planning on being a journalist) I'd suggest you look into buying one.
- General spelling errors:
- I'm not even going to waste my time with all the commonly misspelled words, if you are flat out spelling out words that don't exist, you have a few options. You can stop using internet explorer (unless they've finally incorporated in-browser spell check, I haven't used it since IE6). Or you can learn how to spell (I know no one cares enough to actually cut and copy everything they write into a word processor, so I won't even bother.
- Accept/Except
- Accept is a verb "I accepted the polar bears peace offering, but I was reticent, polar bears are known for their subterfuge."
- Except is usually a preposition (if you really understand it well, you can use it as a verb too, but don't get too crazy or you'll end up accepting things when you wanted to except them). "I drink any kind of soda, except Shasta, I haven't been able to look at Shasta the same since ... the incident."
- A lot:
- I can only imagine that the phrase "a lot" came from stuffy Brits who don't like using accompanying genitive nouns with adjectives. They don't say it was a field full of cars, they just say it was a field of cars. Subsequently, if it helps, when you say "a lot" think of a parking lot, or a vacant lot. When you say "a lot of candy corn" what you're actually saying is, "candy corn sufficient to fill a lot." Never say alot, it makes as much sense as "alittle" or "ababy".
- Definitely:
- It's spelled like that, so spell it like that. That is all.
- A note on apostrophes:
- Apostrophes serve two primary purposes:
- Showing possession.
- Representing omitted letters.
- If you're using an apostrophe, ask yourself, is something owning something? Am I taking a letter or a series of letters out? If the answer is yes, you'll most likely want to use an apostrophe. Exceptions are possessive pronouns, my, your, their, his, hers, its, our.
- If you write "it's" you're saying "it is". Why do you use an apostrophe? That's right! Because you're taking the "i" out. Likewise, when you write "let's" you're actually saying let us. Therefore you write it with an apostrophe if you're making a suggestion, and without an apostrophe if you're using the third person singular present continuous declention of "to let" "Hey! let's get out of here, old man Wilcox lets his dogs out in 15 minutes."
- And Finally Then/Than
- Then represents the flow or progression of time, you use it whenever you're giving a sequence of instructions, or when you want to name the result of an action or state of being. "Go open the cage, then run like heck, the koalas haven't been fed for weeks." or "If you like Jamba Juice, then you'll love Mamba Juice, it's practically the same thing, but ours has twice the snake venom."
*While I'm thinking of it, I'll throw this one out, animals are venomous, not poisonous. If it's poisonous, it means you can ingest it. Cyanide, drain cleaner and the stuff in the back of our fridge that no one is brave enough to take out, are poisonous. Snakes, spiders, scorpions and solendons are venomous. Their venom is poisonous though--food for thought.
- Than represents a comparison. "Are you smarter than a fifth grader?" or " I would sooner have my legs broken than go on a date with you." On a side note, I've only ever had one of those sentences directed at me.
To wrap all this up, I'll list a few phrases that people just can't quite seem to get right, which, again, comes from our tendency to repeat general sound patterns without knowing exactly what it is we're saying.
- Supposed to: Not suppose to
- Used to: Not use to (this applies in both cases, "I used to eat glue" and "I'm used to getting the wrong directions to a party."
- Toward: Not towards
- Anyway:Not anyways.
- Couldn't care less: This means that what you've just been told is, in your opinion, as uninteresting as it comes. If you say "I could care less" you're saying that this is at least moderately interesting to you. The phrase becomes completely useless when expressed like this.
- For all intents and purposes: Please stop saying "for all intensive purposes". This phrase comes from 16th century English law, were it was originally, "to all intents, constructions, and purposes."
And there you have it, at least a few things that'll start cleaning up our grammar and making us look like we are indeed smarter than a fifth grader. If I may be so bold in requesting such; would it be too much to ask that we actually start trying to apply this principle of writing correctly whenever we put hands to keyboard? I know that there are plenty of correspondences that we don't deem worthy of the time and effort, but that's just the thing. The reason correct grammar and spelling seems so tedious to us is because we use it so infrequently. If we think in nothing but correct English, eventually that will be the way that thoughts naturally begin to be expressed on the page. I just hate the thought of our children and grandchildren getting even worse than we currently are. Or worse yet, I hate the thought of the way we communicate through text message and emails becoming the official English. What a terrible thought! Can you imagine 60 years from now a high school textbook showing the correct usage of "u" or "2" in a sentence? Or when it is or is not necessary to capitalize an "i"? I think the buck needs to stop here. I think we need to start writing clear, well formulated, concisely expressed sentences and get ourselves out of what it is we've been writing for the last few years which is, simply put, just a bunch of excretia.
