Kan U Spel? Part Too

Here I am again! Twice in one evening! Can you handle it?

One of the things I have done on this blog more than once is to complain about the English language. To be more specific, the way in which some people see fit to use it.

Yes, it's that time again where Jeff sees fit to correct a few people for whom spelling and punctuation and grammar were just loose guidelines, almost suggestions if you will.

Let's start with one of my personal top hates, and that is the whole "Your/You're" thing.

Your is a possessive. "It is your blanket. It belongs to you. It's yours."

You're is a contraction of "you are" as in "You're on that blanket again. Get the hell off it. You're seriously irritating me."

Then we move on to There/Their/They're.


There has two uses:
      1) to mean a place
For example: The State Penitentiary is over there.

      2) with the verb "to be" (in phrases like "there is", "there are" etc)
For example:There are 268 inmates in the State Penitentiary.

Their  means "belonging to them".
For example: Their car is a hunk of junk.

They're is a contraction of "they are".
For example: They're getting out of the State Pen in three years.

I also get annoyed by  "Its/It's".
It's"  is short for "it is".  As in  "It's really aggravating when people cannot write correctly".
"Its"  is a possessive, as in "I really hated that car, its engine was a piece of poo."


I also get really annoyed when people write "could of"  when what they really mean is "could have". I think this begins at school. Traditionally this gets shortened to "could've" which when spoken sounds like "could of". But any rational person knows that when you look at it, there's no possible way "could of"  can make any kind of literal sense.

Another one that raises my hackles is the contraction of "a" and  "lot". I read stuff like that all the time.  "I've done alot today." It's A LOT. Not ALOT. Alot is not a word. Neither is Nevermind.   Nevermind  is an album by Nirvana.  Never Mind The Bollocks  is an album by the Sex Pistols.

And if you are on Facebook and want to put a word in your status update that you are unsure of how to spell, look it up!! There are tons of dictionaries online, any one of which will tell you that the correct way to describe your girlfriend is GORGEOUS, not GORGUESS  or GORGOUSE.

Gah, don't they teach 'em anything in school these days?