Misplaced Apostrophes
Seth Godin, the marketing guru, asked today if he’s the only one who takes issue with misplaced apostrophes and so forth.
The answer is no. I’m bothered by it too. My pet peeve is vented in Than NOT Then, and I’ve spent a lot of time wondering where I should stand on the issue of poor grammar. I don’t want to be insensitive to dislexia or other communication difficulties, but for the average person, I think there’s no reason why mistakes should be made over than and then, lose and loose, your and you’re, there, their and they’re, to, too and two. And if you don’t grasp the individual meaning of words that sound similar, the science of apostrophes must seem like arcane esoteric knowledge. Let’s not even adventure to who and whom.
I do try to look beyond spelling and grammar. After all, you don’t have to wear a suit to be a businessman, and I’m all for content over format. But if you are trying to convey your message via the written word, your grammar will be under scrutiny. It might be a cliché to say that one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but when you are browsing in a book store, you are doing just that. When you meet people, you are making instant judgements.
I’ve believe that grammar is to writing as lighting is to cinematography. The best films are the ones in which you forget you are watching a film. It’s a craft, as is writing, and grammar is one of the tools of the trade. Not everybody cares about grammar, I accept that, and I take the message that is being conveyed at face-value, but good grammar brings precision to the written word, whereas bad grammar adds a layer that the reader has to push past to get to the message.
It seems too, that standards are falling. People dash out blog posts and ‘articles’ without proof-reading, and maybe that’s okay if you’re just publishing to let grandma know what’s going on in your life (she’ll love you anyway), but if your ambitions are any higher than that, it’s essential you get grammar under control. Sloppy grammar might not indicate a carelessness in your work, but a lot of readers will take it that way and make assumptions about sloppiness in your product or service.
On the plus side, the advent of easy publishing has enabled many people to get their messages out into the world. Formerly barriers to publishing meant that an editor stood between an author’s grammatical mistakes and the reading public, but I think we are richer for the breakdown of barriers. I’ll just have to bite my tongue a bit more.
UPDATE: LOL, I just had to add this link from failblog.org:
see more Fail Blog
The Wire Does Grammar
The Wire, Season 1, Episode 7—One Arrest
The beginning of this episode opens with the team analysing a conversation they’ve intercepted on the phone. In itself it’s interesting the way the dealers are using a language code, which the cops have to crack, but six minutes forty seconds into the episode, the fun begins. McNulty has submited a report which the judge is reviewing. The judge is having some trouble with McNulty’s grammar:
Judge: Look here Jimmy, you mis-spelled culpable, and you’re confusing then and than. T-H-E-N is an adverb used to divide and measure time… “Detective McNulty makes a mess and then he has to clean it up.”
McNulty: Thanks teacher. It’s great that you’re going through every word but…
Judge: Not to be confused with T-H-A-N, which is most commonly used after a comparative adjective or adverb as in, “Rhonda is smarter than Jimmy”. Yeah?
I love it.
thanNOTthen.net
Oh for God’s Sake, it’s thanNOTthen.
My how it bugs me when someone doesn’t seem to know the difference between the words THAN and THEN.
To me it’s obvious. I can’t conceive HOW to mix them up. They are as different as day and night. My guess is that it’s the American accent. The pronunciation of “than” is not distinct enough to “then”, and a whole generation of kids have grown up thinking they’re interchangable. At my school I wouldn’t have passed English had I confused the two.
Of course, dedicating a website to a pet peeve might seem extreme. The final straw, for me, came when I read this unholy of unholies in The Economist, which hitherto had been my refuge for proper English usage. I fired off a letter to the editor threatening to cancel my subscription, but I guess that’s the state of the world we now live in. And yes, I know I’m over-reacting.
The very language we use is rotting away.
Head over to the site and show your support!
Support theWORDjunkie
Buying something for yourself via the Amazon widget below and theWORDjunkie will receive an affiliate kick-back. (If you have an addblocker in place, you might not see the widget. Use this linkinstead.)
Thanks for your support.