"Your" "You're" and "There" "Their" "They're"

[bibblies]

quote:

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Originally posted by iuytrede:

wasn't bibblies in another thread scolded because he corrected other people's English?

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I was only correcting GoodThaiGirl's mistakes because she asserted that she frequented the board mainly to improve her English. I was simply trying to be helpful and testing the truth of it. (I thought that she might get tired of it and admit that she comes to this board for sex, sex, sex. )

I'm much more tolerant of non-native English speakers, but it does grate on the eye to see such elementary mistakes made by natives, because they're so simple to fix. Such mistakes indicate laziness and a lack of respect for the audience.

Other horrible mistakes that are becoming common include:

1. use of "'s" instead of a simple "s" for a plural. It's a simple rule that takes seconds to learn. Use an apostrophe to indicate possession (i.e. "John's wife") or missing letter/s in abbreviations (i.e. "they are"="they're"). A special case: "it's"="it is" and "its" is used in possession (i.e. "The dog licked its balls")

2. confusing "less" and "fewer". "Fewer" is used for things that are measured discretely. (I.e. if you can talk about "one girl" or "two girls", then use "fewer girls"). "Less" is used when you don't measure things directly in integers. (I.e. you don't talk about "one water", you talk about "one pint of water" or whatever. So it's "less water")

You can confuse the meaning of what you're trying to say by making such mistakes. For example, in one of Stickman's latest columns, I think* he talked about the decline of NEP being partly due to "less attractive girls" in NEP, but I suspect he meant "fewer attractive girls". (The first one means that the girls are generally less attractive (than what? - before?) whereas the second means that the number of attractive girls has declined.)

*Sorry, I can't check it now - my Internet connection's running like a dog. But shame on Stickman, eh? English teacher!!