I also spend a fair amount of time reading online forums on various topics. Sometimes it's work related, when I'm looking to see if anyone has run into the same issue I might have just found. Other times the forums are for things that entertain me, like the official GURPS forums.
I am disappointed by the grammar almost everywhere I go online. Some of it so bad (usually on those technical forums) that I can't adequately describe it here. The short version of the description is that I am unable to understand what a person posting on the forum is trying to convey. But there are simpler bits that people mess up frequently.
your
The word "your" is used incorrectly more often than correctly on the forums I read. I don't understand why. Are people that lazy when they type that they can't type a couple extra characters? Does it really save that much time to drop those extra characters?
- your: a pronoun indicating ownership or possession. You might use it in a sentence like, "your clothing looks good on you."
- you're: the contraction form of the words "you are". You might use it in a sentence like, "you're dancing very well."
Sadly, in my experience, people writing for the entire population of the internet to see don't bother to type out "you're". Ever. And it bothers me enough that I'm writing this blog post. But it doesn't end there...
to
Do I need to explain this one?
- to: the most common definition is to indicate direction of travel, as in "I am going to the store".
- too: it means "also", like when you say "I want ice cream too".
- two: It's a number. People don't seem to use this incorrectly a lot, but what I do see a lot of is people typing the character "2" instead of writing out the letters "to" or "too".
It boggles my mind. How hard is it really? At most we're talking about three characters, and posting on forums is not something I imagine people doing from a cell phone. Is it really that hard to type out the whole word on a full keyboard? And even if it is done on a cellphone, I just don't understand why people are willing to be confusing. Are they just too stupid? Should I be going easy on them for that?
their
This might be the most incorrectly used set of homonyms I'm aware of. I'm getting a headache as I type this because I tried to correct someone on a forum about the grammatical mistake, and one of the forum moderators asked me not to pick on people like that. I thought I was being polite. I thought I was helping to avoid future embarrassment. But I got a talking to.
- their: possessive pronoun. It indicates possession. How hard is that to remember? You might use it in a sentence like "their house is beautiful."
- there: it indicates a place. You might use it in a sentence like "look over there."
- they're: Another example of a contraction with the word "are" in it. It is short for "they are". You might use it in a sentence like "they're the best swimmers I know."
Why are these such common mistakes? Why do so many people have such trouble with this? I want people to know that they're using their language poorly (see what I did there?). Your understanding of what an author is trying to say is greatly assisted by correct grammar, and I'd bet you're going to thank me for clarifying all this. Those two homonym groups are the ones that take me to my angry place most often, but this one gets me there too.
Okay. I'm done venting. I would be very happy if the forum population would improve their understanding of English grammar enough to stop triggering my OCD.
