Brian at the CopyBlogger blog has written a post that deserves as much attention as it can get:
5 Common Mistakes That Make you Look Dumb
In his post, Brian lists five common — but easy to correct — writing mistakes that every *writer should be more conscientious of.
* and by writer, I mean bloggers (and blog commenters), journalists, diarists, people chatting on IM, and office workers sending emails.
Brian’s five rules concern the usage of the following:
- Your vs. You’re
- It’s vs. Its
- There vs. Their
- Affect vs. Effect
- The Dangling Participle
In his very active comment sections others have also mentioned the the need for more people to pay attention to the differences in:
- Their vs. There vs. They’re
- A lot is one word, not two
If you don’t know what the issue is with any one of these items, then please do yourself a favor and go read his post.
(Yes, I am a grammar and word geek. Why do you ask?)
Hahahahaha. This coming from the guy who recently posted “Who’s Pay Does Illegal Immigration Raise?”?
Yeah, I know. But I write quickly without editing here.
I spend all day as a technical writer for a company that makes air defense systems and command and control tactical data link systems. That kind of exacting writing is tiring and time consuming.
I should do a better job of editing my own blog writing, I know. But I’m guilty of some (many) of the errors listed above. That doesn’t invalidate them.
True.
And I’m allowed to make fun because I have never, ever, made a grammar mistake on my own blog . . .