PSA from your friendly neighborhood Grammar Nazi

[rachg82]

Dear world,

You will notice that this video does not say, "You can also use apostrophes to make a word plural!" Why not, you may ask? BECAUSE IT'S WRONG. There are many girl's with toys in the house. WRONG. That girl's toy is in the house. Yes. Yes, it is.

Unless you're talking about an exception like an abbreviation with two or more interior periods, or a single lowercase letter (simply because a's is less confusing than as, which can wrongly read to the eye as the word "as", though in my opinion this can be solved by capitalizing single letters. Case in point: "I earned two Bs this semester." Perfectly acceptable.), don't do it.

P.S. It's DVDs and 1990s, not DVD's & 1990's. STOP IT.

Love,
Me.

Misused apostrophes make me raaaage, rage against the dying of the light. That is all.

(Also, that cartoon is so cute. Heh. I like the bat. Jayden and I used to have a thing for them. We'd turn off the lights in his room, get out a flashlight, and do shadow puppets of bats on the wall, making bat sounds.)

P.P.S. On a non-related note: I just called the temp agency about my W2 form, and wow, the lady who works at the front desk there is still such an insufferable wench. "Uhh, we sent those out at the end of January." I know. I just told you I misplaced it & need you to look me up in your records so I can pick up a replacement copy in person. Everyone knows W2 forms are sent by the end of January. Can I pick up a copy or are you too busy filing your nails? "If you know for sure you worked last year…" What? No, I don't know for sure; I got hit over the head REALLY HARD & can't remember all of last year at all. WTF are you on? YES, I KNOW FOR SURE. She even asked me twice. BITCH, CHECK YO'SELF.<--bringing us back to the point, note that the apostrophe there denotes the omission of letters. Yay for continuity!

Comments

[sumpta.livejournal.com]

OMG, you totally made me check my last comment on your LJ and I saw I got "chakras" wrong :(((((. I'm Flemish! Don't hurt me!

[rachg82.livejournal.com]

HA! That is awesome. Now that you mention it, I noticed, but I wasn't thinking of you at all when I posted this. Hee. Those who speak English as a second language get an automatic free pass.

[sumpta.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I usually don't get my apostrophes wrong. I care about spelling! But "chakra" being a foreign word (ending in an "-a" to make it even worse) must have messed me up.

Also? An hour ago I wrote a comment in another journal how recently, I'm getting lazy about rereading what I write and how the internet isn't doing my language skills any good. Seriously.

[rachg82.livejournal.com]

I can see how a foreign word would mess you up. Sometimes the brain just spazzes too. Heh. It's like, "How about I write the wrong word entirely?" Oh, typos! What fun you are.

I usually reread everything I write. I'm a bit anal about it. Jen and I used to add a disclaimer to the end of our emails if we hadn't "proofread" them, because we were such perfectionists. Haha. Like, "if there are typos here, don't hold them against me!" Eventually we got over that.

That being said, I'm trying to lighten up about it. Remember the 20% fuck-up factor thing? Right. So, like, if I notice a typo, sometimes I'll just leave it. It's like an OCD exposure, haha. It makes me all agitated.

[vash26.livejournal.com]

Those who speak English as a second language get an automatic free pass.

Pffffff, I'm so relieved. I Dutch this is very acceptable, we use the apostrophes for everything *lols* We also use a colon when we write down quotes. I really have to put an effort into it to ommit those when I write in English.

[sumpta.livejournal.com]

It's definitely veeeeery confusing that the rules are the complete reverse in Dutch! We are supposed to NOT use apostrophes for ownership... but because we all read so much English, we're collectively fucking that spelling rule up. I'm beginning to think it's a lost cause to make people write "Juliens boek" correctly, for example.

Colons, comma's, semicolons, etc. confuse the hell out of me as well. And hyphens! OMG, I just have no clue when we're allowed to use those in English. As if our own spelling isn't difficult enough already *grumbles*.

[vash26.livejournal.com]

*lols* You're right of course. I just checked the email I sent last, and the only apostrophe I used was for 's avonds. So it's not that dramatic after all.

I have never been very good in spelling. Not in Dutch, not in English, not in Fries. I have lived in New Zealand as a child, and it's very confusing that there are different spellings in English as well? Do I spell English with a capital anyway???? In the end, I just mix and match and probably annoy the rest of the world with it.

[rachg82.livejournal.com]

Yes, you would capitalize the word "English", because it's a proper noun. You can read more about capitalization and common/proper nouns here (http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/understanding-capitalization.aspx) or here (http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/Capitalizing-Proper-Nouns.aspx). That site is a great resource. :)

[rachg82.livejournal.com]

I am here for you, girl (http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-hyphens.aspx).<--That's my favorite site to check for grammar confusion.

[sumpta.livejournal.com]

OH YES THANK YOU. I already have my favourite Dutch grammar site bookmarked, but I hadn't found a good English one yet. This is great! I love it! I do have the Oxford English Dictionary and the Collins Cobuild, but you know... Big books. Faaaar away in the bookcase.

I think I get your OCD. I used to be so careful about posting in English on the Internet, but it took so much time to proofread that I tried to shed the habit. It still makes me feel very uneasy when I remark errors afterwards though. It's annoying, because I write Dutch pretty flawlessly without having to put thought into it. I have a hard time accepting I'll never write/speak my other languages like I do my own, which is obviously very irrational of me.

[rachg82.livejournal.com]

See, now I get why Amsterdam has all the coffee shops for tourists. They know nerdy Americans like me are bound to get stressed out over the anarchy of apostrophes, so they're all, "Here, have a smoke. Take it easy."