There, their, or they're

[haywood jablome]

During the election Labor supporters spelling it Labour.. One is a political party, the other is a form of work.

 

[magic_johnson!]

My hates:
Pronouncing "H" with an H not an A.
When people say the date as "May 5"! It's DAY MONTH YEAR in Australia! Therefore "5th of May"
Also people pronouncing "known" as "knowen" and "often" as "offten", the T is silent.

what if someone says may the fifth?
does that grind your gears?

 

[estibador]

Another one that irritates me is its and it's. Remember if you can insert 'is' then it's 'it's'. if you can't then it's 'its'. As a primary teacher I'm amazed at how many teachers even use these incorrectly.

I can see why that one confuses people though. Any other time you're talking about something belonging there is an apostrophe - except when using 'it'.

eg:

It was Mike's jacket

The book had lost its jacket.

It's easy to understand why people assume 'its' should have an apostrophe in that situation.

 

[getthefooty]

When people pronounce environment 'envire-ment' it really, really pisses me off. There is an 'n' in there for a reason.

 

[BlueBen]

You can blame it all on the way English is taught at schools. Previously a larger emphasis was placed on correct grammar, punctuation and sentence structure. Now it's shifted towards expression and imagination.

I'm 19 and most of my friends cannot spell certain words, cannot use apostrophes or commas to save themselves, and their grammar (written, no one cares about spoken) is pretty horrible.

Kids need to be taught the BASIC aspects of written language before they learn expression. I learnt only because my mum harrassed me every time she spotted a mistake in my school work. If she didn't, i'd be like 90% of the population.

No one cares if you can write a story about a unicorn in the work place, but they do care if you can't spell common words.

I agree to an extent. I have also relatively recently finished school (being 23) and agree that there isn't enough inculcation in students of the basics of English.

However, I am not sure that what you claim is a recent shift away from the teaching of technical English towards the promotion of "expression and imagination" is all that contemporary a phenomenon after all. Today's adults are just as guilty: how else can one account for fully-grown adults, many of whom would run successful businesses, read and sign contracts and other important documents, make presentations to clients, and so on, use "loose" when they mean "lose" (in my opinion, probably the most unacceptable error of them all)?

So, I don't think students (and people in general) are themselves entirely blameless. Many simply just don't care about their English. I suppose one could argue that this goes back to the lack of concerted instilling of rudimentary English principles of spelling and grammar at schools. And I think, at least to some extent, that the two ideas are probably connected. But students have to take some initiative themselves. And many lack the motivation or interest to do so.

People don't really stop to think about why "your" and "you're" are two different words. They don't consider the role the apostrophe might be playing in the latter word. It's the same with words like "who's", as contrasted with the word "whose". The two words have to be different. But people, many of whom should really know better, launch into what they are writing without ever giving such considerations a moment's thought.

People think along the lines of 'as long as you understand the message I am trying to communicate, why should it matter that my English is incorrect in the conveyance of that message?'. Hence, if I write "your" instead of "you're", "it's" instead of "its", and so on, it doesn't really matter because you know what I am trying to say. "Definately" sounds right, so I presume it must be right. And so on. Such an attitude is quite prevalent and it is, frankly, quite concerning.

Another factor is the advent of SMS, which, as I'm sure we would all agree, has bastardised the English language. Speed and conciseness in text message composition has come at the expense of the use of correct English, diluting the language.

 

[Gabbie]

You can blame it all on the way English is taught at schools. Previously a larger emphasis was placed on correct grammar, punctuation and sentence structure. Now it's shifted towards expression and imagination.

I'm 19 and most of my friends cannot spell certain words, cannot use apostrophes or commas to save themselves, and their grammar (written, no one cares about spoken) is pretty horrible.

Kids need to be taught the BASIC aspects of written language before they learn expression. I learnt only because my mum harrassed me every time she spotted a mistake in my school work. If she didn't, i'd be like 90% of the population.

No one cares if you can write a story about a unicorn in the work place, but they do care if you can't spell common words.

Just curious and don't mean to offend as a 19 year old your memory of primrary school would be a lot fresher than mine. Are spelling bees still held in schools? Are students made to lose points for bad spelling in essays or any kind of work? Maybe the three "R's" should be brought back to Primrary School.

I remember way, way back having to stand up in class and read out loud from whatever book the teacher gave us. Also, spelling bees!!! The teacher would spring it on the class without warning. By the time I reached High School if we made a spellling error in an exam, even if our answer was correct, we had half a percentage point deducted for bad spelling.

 

[bears2lions]

BlueBen, you may not have been writing about football, but your post was a real pleasure to read.

Silky smooth flowing prose.

I hope your line of work involves writing.

 

[Hard Ball Get]

Another one that drives me batty but seems to be getting more common amongst school children is the use of "versed".(e.g. Collingwood versed Essendon on the weekend).

YES!
And who are we "versing" this week.
Drives me crazy!

 

[ripitup27]

Just curious and don't mean to offend as a 19 year old your memory of primrary school would be a lot fresher than mine. Are spelling bees still held in schools? Are students made to lose points for bad spelling in essays or any kind of work? Maybe the three "R's" should be brought back to Primrary School.

I remember way, way back having to stand up in class and read out loud from whatever book the teacher gave us. Also, spelling bees!!! The teacher would spring it on the class without warning. By the time I reached High School if we made a spellling error in an exam, even if our answer was correct, we had half a percentage point deducted for bad spelling.

The problem is many of these teachers don't have the knowledge to realise when students are spelling incorrectly.

 

[Ben the Gooner]

3am in the morning shits me up the wall.

 

[Fossie 32]

Misplaced apostrophe's

 

[Howard Littlejohn]

Forgot about the idiots who post "here here", when agreeing with a poster. FFS people, that's what you say to your dog, it's "hear hear".

Although "here here" could make more sense when referring to the written word, as it is not "heard" but it is "here". Without sound, it is not really possible to "hear hear".
However, I don't think those who make the statement are deliberately making reference to the type of forum it appears on.

I have to agree with the "would of", "could of", "should of". Presumably, it comes from the spoken word, where could've is often used. The ~'ve ending sounding more like "of" than "have" when spoken.

NB: I make enough mistakes myself, along with my rather bizarre writing style, so don't bother pointing them all out.

 

[sherb]

3am in the morning shits me up the wall.

That's tautology.

Like saying a batsman "lofted the ball in the air".

 

[Ben the Gooner]

Horrible stuff, isn't it?

 

[Hard Ball Get]

upishly played.

 

[jonoman89]

Just curious and don't mean to offend as a 19 year old your memory of primrary school would be a lot fresher than mine. Are spelling bees still held in schools? Are students made to lose points for bad spelling in essays or any kind of work? Maybe the three "R's" should be brought back to Primrary School.

I remember way, way back having to stand up in class and read out loud from whatever book the teacher gave us. Also, spelling bees!!! The teacher would spring it on the class without warning. By the time I reached High School if we made a spellling error in an exam, even if our answer was correct, we had half a percentage point deducted for bad spelling.

No, not really. I can remember a few of them thrown in now and then. What i remember the most about late primary school was learning cursive script. It didn't work, my hand writing is appalling.

And there still are basic English lessons taught in high school, but it is assumed by around year 8 that you know how to spell common words and have a basic grasp of grammar and punctuation.

 

[jonoman89]

Misplaced apostrophe's

I still have problems with this to be honest. I understand the ownership concept of "it's" and its, but i don't understand the difference between say "peoples" and "peoples' ".

 

[getthefooty]

I still have problems with this to be honest. I understand the ownership concept of "it's" and its, but i don't understand the difference between say "peoples" and "peoples' ".

The word 'peoples' isn't used too often, I don't think. It is usually used in reference to a group of people, e.g. the 'Indigenous peoples'. Peoples' is used for ownership, in other words it the same thing as 'peoples's. 'That is the peoples' choice.' 'Charter on human and peoples' rights.'

 

[Ninty]

"We where at the footy today."

This annoys me the most that hasn't been listed in this thread...

Also, people that put a space between the end of a sentence and full stop or whatever.

"We where at the footy today . Where did you sit ?"

 

[stralia]

Something that bothers me is when a poster
starts a new line of text instead of letting the
automatic formatting do its job.

Another pet peeve is use of 'Smilies' amidst the sentence and the baffling practice of Placing capital Letters At Random.

 

[estibador]

This isn't really relevant but while we're talking about the habits of bigfooty posters...

God it shits me when people sign off with their username after every post. So lame. I already know what your name is, it's in big f**king letters over there <------<<<

 

[Ninty]

Yeah, I know what you're saying... Bloody w***ers.

Cheers,
Ninty.

 

[sblack]

YES!
And who are we "versing" this week.
Drives me crazy!

My most hated by a long shot. Occurs a lot on the DT/SC boards.

Also quotes using double quotation marks instead of a single set. Double marks only are used when quoting inside another quote.

And the use of 'alot'.

 

[The Kipster]

I fell on my ass

the Aussie terminology is 'arse' in my opinion, although you are quite correct

 

[RedWhiteBlack]

I'm sure it's been done in the previous nine pages, but it amazes me how many people can't differentiate between "you're" and "your" ie."Your the best!"

Drives me insane.