Putting aside the most obvious culprit, the internet and its evil spawn 'spell check' and 'texting,' the entire USA seems to have joined Alice at the bottom of the rabbit hole when it comes to the English language. It's quite confusing, and distressing as well. It is to me, anyway.
I do not want to sound like your dowdy old English teacher Miss Crabapple, nor do I mean to be snooty, but really...! I'm embarrassed by, and tired of wincing every time I hear a grammatical mistake, or read a misspelled word. A voracious reader my entire life, books are what instilled in me a love of words that carries on to this day. For what it's worth, I couldn't explain the meaning of a dangling participle or a subjugated verb to save my life, but I sure as hell can construct a sentence or paragraph without misusing either one. Call it osmosis from reading all those written words.
Now for a few cringe-worthy examples:
Your and you're: Perhaps the most common massacre of all, why is it so difficult for people to understand that you're is a contraction of you are and therefore your just doesn't cut it when telling someone, for example, "You're welcome" as opposed to "It's your thing"...?
Its and it's: Again, the latter a contraction of it is. While its is possessive ~ "The public library has digitized its entire catalog" ~ it's a crying shame that the human race doesn't read as much as it used to, if only to improve its command of the English language.
There and their: Oh, for Pete's sake, how difficult is that to figure out?? "There he goes, into the wild blue yonder" vs. "His loved ones held onto to their hats until he safely returned." Anyone out there worth their salt who can answer a simple question?
Me and I: It's amazing how many people think that I is the appropriate way to state the coupling of two people. While "He and I went shopping together" is on the money, please note that "after which, our friends joined Joe and me for lunch" is the correct way to end it.
I can't even touch upon spelling these forlorn days. The aforementioned "spell check" has just about gutted what was left of the English language since computers usurped human brains. Case in point, "to the manor born"...the brilliant spell check cannot differentiate between manor and manner, leaving us all a little bit dumber, and at the mercy of machines that can 'think' for us.
I thank you for your attention, it's been a blast, there is more to come, but for now, I would just like some quiet time for me, myself and I! Or is that me.....?
