10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling, Please!
Facebook. It’s a worldwide phenomenon and the number one social networking site. Facebook allows you to stay in touch with friends and family, remember birthdays and anniversaries, play computer games socially and of course stalk ex-lovers and friends, all while in the comfort of your own living room.
Facebook, however, also has its downsides – and one downside annoys me more than others. To put it simply, I find that Facebook is a breeding ground for terrible grammar and spelling.
How many times have I seen Facebook ‘friends’ use the word “your” in status updates or wall posts when they really mean the contraction, “you’re”, or refer to “they’re” as “there” or even “their”? It’s happened more times than I can count – and I find this unnerving. Why? Well, because the majority of my Facebook ‘friends’ are in their late twenties, grew up in an English speaking country and are, in my opinion, well educated.
So, why the constant faux pas on such simple, every day words?
Is SMS to blame? Are people now so used to shortening words to fit a message into 140 characters or less that they just don’t remember basic spelling and grammar anymore? Is it that we have just become lazy and ignorant? Could it be that misspelling the most basic of words is now seen as socially acceptable and “cool”? Or is it just a simple case of monkey see, monkey do?
Whatever the reason, it pains me to see people refer to “their” as “there”. It makes my eye twitch when I see “alot” instead of “a lot”. I scream in horror when people post, “your coming to dinner on Friday night, aren’t you?”. And thankfully, I am not the only one who rolls up into the feotal position under my desk when I see the word “definately”.
Matthew Inman from www.theoatmeal.com shares my hatred for the misspelling of simple, every day words; his comic 10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling is brilliant and something that I feel I need to share!
It wouldn’t hurt schools and workplaces to have one of these posters on every wall. Or, now that I think about it, maybe it just needs to be posted to certain walls on Facebook.
