Getting Out of a Bad "Spell", Or "Don't let Mrs. Snodgrass catch you writing that!"

Tanya - I see/read this often.  I'm usually pretty good about such things, however I often fall prey to certain grammatical errors.  They tend not to be the ones you mention above, yet a good lesson/reminder is rarely a bad thing.

I think the thing to remember is, we are typing for business, right?  Does it send a message to potential clients when we can't spell? I'm as guilty as anyone(my brain thinks faster than my fingers move), but we probably should be waaaay more careful, check and recheck before we hit that submit button. 

Tanya,  Great post.  When I read posts and comments, I am amazed at the mistakes.  I don't think that spell check is used on many of them.  And, of course spell check will not catch many of the mistakes.  I usually do a good job at catching my own mistakes, but always use spell check as a backup.  If there is no spell check, I copy and paste into a word processing program.  Thank you for sharing these rules with us.

Oh, thanks for doing this, Tanya.  I feel like jumping in and correcting all those typos. And they are so common.

Great blog, Tanya! I often see words used incorrectly, too. I use memory tricks to help me with most of these words you mentioned, and more. The exception is to the words it and it's. I just plain remember them because "its" defies the usual rules for possessive words, which normally use an apostrophe. Here are a few tricks that may help others:

THERE: The word there, has the word HERE, in it. So does the word where. They all relate to location. THEIR: The word their has the word HEIR in it. They both relate to those who own or will own something. THEY'RE: The word they're is simply a contraction of two words, just as you said. The apostrophe is the clue.

YOUR: The word your has the word OUR in it. They both relate to ownership. YOU'RE: Again, like "they're," above, the word they're is simply a contraction of two words. The apostrophe is the clue.

TO: As in, GO to. Both go and to have the same amount of letters. TOO: As in too many. This word has MORE "O's" so perhaps there are too many - get it?  TWO: No trick here, its just the last possibility so it must be the numerical version :)

THEN or THAN: In the case of then versus than, I remember them by their vowels. THEN has the same vowel as WHEN, and they both relate to time. THAN has the same vowel as RATHER, and they both relate to a choice.

Now if people could just stop SAYING words incorrectly, such as acrossed (correct word is across) or acks (correct word is ask) for instance, I could stop cringing! LOL

~ Lin

I am Jimmy Page, as a matter of fact. So THEIR.

JUST KIDDING. (giggle)

We're preaching to the choir.  It always bugs me when posts with glaring grammatical or spelling errors are featured. I would not want that to represent me to a wave of public eyes.

I must have had a clone of Mrs. Snodgrass.  And didn't we all have really easy ways to remember the differences?  It bugs me too.

Michael

Well, in today's world of spell checkers, those are the words that just don't get flagged as they have alternative spellings.

Tanya, how cute of you to write this blog post! I admit that proofreading is a second nature to me...so I hope this helps minimize the improper use of their, they're and there as well as it's and its and your and you're. :)

Leilani

Now rewrite your post using just the 140 characters allowed by Twitter. There's a new language in the making, and it ain't pretty.

Tanya, sounds like your version of Sister Mary Clara!  That mean old nun really taught us English grammar!  Not that I don't make my share of typos.