Grammar can be a pain in the butt, but grammar can also be fun. In the recent weeks, the Grammar Guide has been rather serious. Why don’t we have a little bit of fun today, and take a look at this infographic called “15 Grammar Goofs That Make You Look Silly”? ((Source: copyblogger))
The light tone of the title notwithstanding, the mistakes – let’s call a spade a spade – are really not that silly at all. As we always say, everyone makes mistakes. When it comes to the 15 in the infographic, however, unless they are typographical mistakes, committing the errors makes a writer look bad. I see two reasons for that:
- These mistakes make you look like you do not know the basics of grammar/word usage.
- These mistakes make you look sloppy. They can simply mean you do not proofread you work.
So what are the 15 goofy mistakes? Most of them will not surprise you, especially since we’ve covered some of them in the past. Here’s a quick rundown before you take a look at the infographic.
- Your/You’re
- It’s/Its
- There/Their/They’re
- Affect/Effect
- Then/Than
- Loose/Lose
- Me, Myself, and I
- Improper use of the apostrophe
- Could of/Would of/Should of (Nooooooo! Darth Vader style)
- Complement/Compliment
- Fewer/Less
- Historic/Historical
- Principal/Principle
- Literally
- The Dangling Participle
I like the concept presented in the intro: “Engaging online writing is informal, conversational, and fun, but certain goofy mistakes just make you look silly…and not in a good way.” I don’t know about you, but I agree, and I definitely think that “informal, conversation, and fun” does not equate to goofy mistakes!
Which of these do you (sometimes) make? Off the top of my head, the most recent one I made was to interchange loose and lose – courtesy of fingers flying faster than my brain. Proofreading did help, though!
Which ones bug you? For me, could of, would of, and should of just does not cut it. No, I don’t count them as typographical errors!
0
65k
6k
Leave a Reply