[rant]
How come people can’t tell the difference between “lose” and “loose”? I see it all the time now…
Well, you loosen your belt when you’re full, but if you lose your belt your pants fall down!
[/rant]
grrrrr.
Eh, no worries! Da buggahs goin’ catch on soonah o latah! Bumbye you can slap 'om!!
Baglady, you must have a screw lose. Why don’t you just loose that damn attitude!!??
:: Ducking ::
Baglady -
You’re mad about loose and lose being interchanged, but you’ve ignored the others!
You’re - means “you are”
Your - means it belongs to you
There - means another place
Their - means it belongs to them
They’re - means “they are”
The world will never be right until all these travesties of grammar are corrected.
it’s=it is
its=it owns something
Baglady,
I do this ALL the freakin time. I make all kinds of stupid errors. Really sucks when you do web pages part-time. I have my step-bro review all my pages for me.
Thankfully!
Techie, I’m not surprised. Being around DP-types for decades as I have, I’ve learned that they should never write their own (unedited) content. Nor should they do their own typing. It never stops amazing me that a profession that requires precise input would attract so many people who can neither spell nor type.
Re: it’s/its
Mizzou has the world’s first degree-granting journalism school. Yet our school paper and many of the English papers I have seen as an apprentice writing lab tutor can’t distinguish between these two words. My neighbor in the dorms remarked last year, “This is a sad state of affairs. We have the premier j-school, but the really sad thing is that there are STILL going to be people who graduate from this university who can’t write ‘its’ or ‘it’s’ correctly.”
Random anecdote.
The grammar mistake that gets me is subject/verb non-agreement. There was a clear-cut case of this on the History Channel last week, but I can’t remember what it was…damn. It was something like “A group of us are going…” It’s A group. Just one. Therefore, a group IS going. Grrr.
You guys worry way to much.
Bovary…was that intentional???
When I was in J school we were trained to honor the copy editor as our grammar god. The good ones seem to have all died off. Those who survive allow appalling mistakes through.
Rather, allow through appalling mistakes.
I need an editor.
What’s the matter dear? Did another engineer submit bad copy?
Sorry, but is that so important???
Is it not that you got what the person mean
that counts???
Well, the OP does establish the fact that we’re in the middle of a real paradox. Witness:
- DPers can’t spell. And “grammar” is a blood relative.
- DPers CAN write code. Hell, they gave us the SDMB.
- EVERY piece of code in the world was written by a DPer.
- Every DPer relies on spell checkers.
- Every DPer relies on grammar checkers (if nothing else, just to see if she’s home.)
Hence the paradox: DPers can’t spell, spell checkers DO exist, and spell checkers MUST have been written by DPers.
A simalar paradox applies to grammar.
I think that I’m going to have to discuss this with Mr. Jack Daniels this evening…
old school here. I’ve heard the claim “well, if you KNEW what the person meant, why quibble about the spelling” - well IRL people DO care because it causes others to have low opinions - example:
Our local school district hired a company to do some promotional billboards. They did. They included a grammatical error : “improving everyday” Not, “every day”, but “everyday”. Did the school district get publicity? yep. was it the kind they wanted? nope. Did people “know” what they meant? yep.
Example: on a local restaurant “Try are soup” did I know what they meant? yep. Did I care? nope.
On a job application : “have you applied here before? Know” Did I “no” what she meant? yep? would I have hired her? nope. Ditto to the guy who claimed to know how to fix “vcares” (VCR s) - had to see that one to believe it.
I’m willing to cut slack to those who are just learning our language, but really, you aught to “no” the basics of your native language…
I’m with baglady and wring on this. Even if I can figure out what you meant, spelling and grammar errors make me think less of what you say. Take a little time to say it clearly and correctly!
There’s another that nobody mentioned: “<adjective>, <adjective>, and <clause>”. Example: “She was sweet, sexy, and could drive men wild.” (It irritates me just as much when done with adverbs.) Lists should be made of one kind of item, not a mixed bag.
Nothing like a little rant on writing to make me feel better!
Anniz asks, “Sorry, but is that so important??? Is it not that you got what the person mean that counts???”
Well, yes and no. If a person can’t spell or write correctly, you can’t be sure what they mean. Example:
“A clever dog knows its master.” – means the dog knows who the owner is.
“A clever dog knows it’s master.” – means the dog is the boss!!
It’s just one LITTLE TINY APOSTROPHE but the difference changes the entire meaning of the sentence.
As professional grammarian Richard Lederer says so poignantly in his open letter to Ann Landers, “I am aware that English is a living language. Like a tree, language sheds its leaves and grows new ones so that it may live on. But to recognize the reality of and the need for change does not mean that we must accept the mindless permissiveness that pervades the use of English in our society.”
Some of the problems encountered here are typos. I know that I have them often. There have been numerous times that I have written lose intstead of loose and only caught these mistakes when I reread my post. Because some of us tend to post late at night when we are tired, clerical errors will be magnified.
[hijack]
Baglady, are you a fan of Lederer and his books? I used one of them for a linguistics class and it went over quite well.
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