Grammar 101: Learn to say what you think you're saying

**(YAY--I remembered one of the posts that I wanted to make)**

I would never claim to be a wiz in English. And if I did I know quite a few people who would call foul, because I am probably one of the worst spellers under the sun, and I know/admit it. That fact entitles me to create this post.

In second grade I learned about something called a homonym. It's a word that sounds exactly like another word, but is spelled differently and means something different.

Examples:

• there and their
• to, too, and two
• weak and week
• steak and stake

As a second grader this was a little difficult for me to understand. If they mean two different things why wouldn't we just use two different words?...but it is what it is, I learned it, and its no big deal. So why do I see people mixing them up all over the place?! And I'm not talking about these mix ups occurring in someones notes, or text messages or anything, I'm talking about proof-reading a classmate's paper when I was in college, or the editing of certain work manuals that I have had to for my job and finding "their" instead of "there", or "to" instead of "too". People who are supposedly very well educated and professionally successful drop the ball on this simple concept over and over and over again. If I could get it-- with my lack of flare for the English language-- I don't understand what is so difficult about it for other people! IF YOU ARE MAKING THIS MISTAKE THEN YOU ARE NOT SAYING WHAT YOU THINK YOU'RE SAYING!!!

And if we add contractions to homonyms, all of a sudden absolute grammatical mayhem ensues! What is a contraction?--based on the extent to which they are misused I know there is someone out there asking. A contraction is a shortened form of a word or group of words, with the omitted letters often replaced in written English by an apostrophe.

Examples:

• you are = you're
• do not = don't
• I am = I'm

But instead of finding "you're" I often find "your"--which is a posessive and has nothing to do with someone's state of being. And instead of finding "they're", I fequently find "there"--which refers to a location and still has nothing to do with anyone's state of being. As far as I can tell this only happens because the two words sound the same! IF YOU ARE MAKING THIS MISTAKE THEN YOU ARE NOT SAYING WHAT YOU THINK YOU'RE SAYING!!!

Then there are words that get mixed up because they sound the same, but the only reason they sound the same is be cause we have horrid announciation. I don't think words like this even have a name, because no one anticipated that we would stupid enough to mix them up.

Examples:

• our & are
• then & than

IF YOU ARE MAKING THIS MISTAKE THEN YOU ARE STILL NOT SAYING WHAT YOU THINK YOU'RE SAYING!!!

BONUS: The other week at work I was editing job descriptions for the company, and found "etc." abreviated as "ext."--still not saying what you think you're saying!