Dear Grammar Idiots

[superbadgirl]

Yes, I'm talking to you.

"Your" and "you're" are actually very simple to differentiate. Rather than explaining possessives and contractions, as that seems to make people's heads spin, I'll simply state that if you can break the word you're using in any given sentence into "you" and "are", then you should use "you're." If that's not what you mean, then go with "your."

SIMPLE.

Also please note that the past tense of drag is not drug. Drug is either a pharmaceutical or, as a verb, means to give someone a pharmaceutical. Dragged is the word you want. Really.

Past and passed are not interchangeable. Costumer when you mean customer is just plain embarrassing. Bemused is not the same thing as amused.

Do not get me started on the then/than issue so many of you seem to have. That one is also simple to understand if you just think about it for half a second or so.

My advice: get a beta who has a clue, and instead of just using her/him as a tool, learn from her/him.

Sincerely,

Girl Who Shouldn't Read at Fanfiction.net

Comments

[superbadgirl]

It's I'm more tolerant of, just because that can sometimes just be a typo. If it's repeated throughout, though, yeah...that's a problem.

I probably do the bring/take thing but I at least I don't confuse borrow/loan. ;)

One more whine is the horrible approach of not using quotation marks at all, what? I'm supposed to guess when characters are speaking? Some writers now use italics for speech - yes, darlings it may be trendy and cool, but I can't bloody READ it and isn't that the point?

Okay, that one I just don't get. It's not like it's a terrible amount of work to use quotation marks. They exist for a reason, no? It is interesting to see some things change. I'm reading an older novel right now, and it was custom to use single quotes for dialogue, not double. I find it kind of disconcerting, but at least I know what's being said, eh?

[el1ie.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you don't do the bring/take thing. :)

Yeah, the quotation marks really do confuse me and I just hit the delete key now, sometimes I have found myself interested and really try to follow, but then I think I could be spending this valuable time reading something else I can follow quickly and I'm gone.

I will be one of those raging about the attempts to change the written language to one of phonetic spellings and no punctuation. I really can't see how people can hope to communicate without these things.

[superbadgirl]

And then there are the folks who can't seem to understand proper punctuation with quotations marks. I don't know why they think none is needed, or why periods started replacing commas.

Don't people, y'know, read books or newspapers or magazines or anything at all?

[el1ie.livejournal.com]

Oh they probably do read them, find them all the same and strive to be totally unique - and unread. *G*

[superbadgirl]

Heh. It boggles my mind, honestly, that there are some stories so shoddily put together which receive an inordinate amount of feedback when some that I've found to be of decent quality get a handful of encouraging notes.

Er...

[el1ie.livejournal.com]

God that gets me too. I found something only the other day that was full of dreadful spelling, mixed up tenses and the punctuation skills of a dead squirrel and I gave up trying to read, but not before scrolling down and finding about 20 messages full of absolute praise - I really wanted to tear my hair out and I should I suppose have left a message mentioning the problems, but honestly I didn't think I would survive the fallout.