A typos rant!

[blinc]

Arrgh! I don't know how many times I have to go back in and fix typo's. The little critters seem to hide so well, til you hit that "submit post" button. THEN they become glaringly obvious!

My worst one's are remembering the different spellings.

You're
Your

Too
To
Two

There
Their
They're

AAAAAAHH!! They torture me! {toothy}

Are there *thinks* (that "there" is right) any that seem to bug the heck out of you?

[In_His_Shadow]

For some reason the words "where" and "were" trip me up. I have to stop and actually say it out loud to figure it out.

Maybe I should go back and take remedial spelling {toothy}

CJ

[TTP]

I haven't the slightest what your talking about? There just words you know? I thought you could use them were you wanted? Two many times I've caught myself wondering if I'm actually supposed to wander? I can never figure that one out...all the others I think I've finaly go down though.

[jamesglewisf]

I'll tell you what drives me crazy. Our DSL provider at work is down regularly. Like right now. We have signed up with another, but there is like a 6-week lead time to get it installed. They keep pushing us back. Aaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh.

[blinc]

Uh oh... a DSL rant... those can get pretty messy!!

RUN FOR COVER!! Aaack! {toothy}

[theyeti]

AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKK!!!! :)

For me, its anything with an e on th eend, like, th eyeti...

[jamesglewisf]

This looks like a good candidate for a "Rants" forum.

[TWTCommish]

A friend of mine (who I believe is an English major), gave me a helpful hint on all the We're/were They're/their business: the aprostaphes are only used when it's a contraction of TWO Words..., so if you're typing "they're", replace it with "they are", and see if it fits or not. This has saved me from many typos. :)

[blinc]

Thanks TWT! That's a good tip. :)

[Karenluvs6]

the old 'i' before 'e' thing always gets me!
I am writing thier, recieve, etc.....
it drives me batty!

[kezzer]

people gets me all the time. I have to remember if it's people or poeple!!!

[In_His_Shadow]

Heres one maybe someone out there has a neat way to remember it. Affect or effect. Whats the difference I can't remember.

CJ

[kezzer]

Hmmm. that one gets me too, come to think of it. Effect is to bring about and affect isto act on. Like His speech affected the crowd. Or The new regimine effected changes. I took those from the dictionary because I'm too tired to think on my own!!!

[kezzer]

Argh!!! It seems like every time I read one of my posts I find a typo!!! And I reread all my posts before I submit too, but they just always seem to pop up!!!!

[In_His_Shadow]

Thanks Kezzer,

That helped unfortunately I am sure the next time I come up against it I will have to stop and think again. Or I just normally use another word competely.

I hate those typo's also. I have to edit mine sometimes even after I have proof read my post.

CJ

[Military Mom]

Speaking of PET PEEVES:

I cringe when I see people who are trying to indicate plurality but wind up making a word possessive. For instance:

{thumbsu} typos vs. {xmark}typo's AAARRGGGHHHHH {jester}

hee hee

In 10th grade English Class we learned that this is a common mistake which most people don't realize they are making.

That i before e thing always gets me too.

Also, when people write "alot" instead of "a lot."

But in the end, as long as we get our point across, it's not that important - just good stuff to know if you write for a living, are in school or are doing up a resumee.

Mommy {devil}

[blinc]

Well you can count on me to be the one to drive you nuts Military Mom. I'm an apostrophe using maniac! {toothy}

[Military Mom]

You go, Girl.

[blinc]

I'm going as fast as I can! {toothy}

Did fix the typo's typo, just so it wouldn't drive you to distraction! *chuckle*

[Austruck]

I'm a proofreader by trade, so I'm trying not to laugh at everyone in this thread.

Bwa-hahahahahahahahahahaha! <------evil laugh

Just kidding. Well, no, not really.

If anyone ever has any grammar questions (and don't spell it "grammer"), ask away. I have no hobbies or real life and live for this kind of picayune nitpicking. How pathetic.

P.S. TWT, you had a great tip about contractions, but you misspelled "apostrophes." Your tip, by the way, also works for the dreaded and oft-misunderstood "its" versus "it's." When used as a possessive, it NEVER takes an apostrophe. You only use the apostrophe there when it is a contraction of "it is." Period.

[Austruck]

Military Mom,

To add to your peeve about the apostrophes for plurals....

That also holds true for making a family name plural. How many people have paid good money for engraved nameplates for their front porches or lawns or mailboxes that say things like, "The Smith's," when it should have read, "The Smiths"?

Arrrrghhhhhh!!!

And, if someone's last name ends with an "s," you usually just add "es" at the end, just as you learned in elementary school for other words that end that way.

So, "The Joneses" is actually correct, though it looks weird.

My maiden name was "Au" -- that one looks weird when you make it "The Aus." Then again, it looks weird no matter WHAT you do to it!

[blinc]

Oohhhh! I get where the name "Austruck" comes into play now. What a great idea! That's really neat!

I'm afraid I have the worst time with the rules of writing. Believe it or not, I took a creative writing class in college and aced it. You know what I think it is? Senility! Yup... that's what I'm going with over here. It's not stupidity... it's senility! Mwuahahahaha! {toothy}

[Austruck]

I'm not sure knowing the rules of writing automatically makes someone a great writer. And certainly the reverse is true: You can be a great communicator even if you have those blind spots about punctuation and grammar.

People who ace only the rules of writing become editors or proofreaders. People who ace only the creativity can still become great writers, with the help of proofreaders and editors. (I say this with some caution, since you can't be horribly bad at spelling and grammar and expect to be taken seriously by an editor or agent.)

People who ace both the rules of writing and the creativity become, well, ME.

BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Sorry, couldn't resist. If I can't pretend I have self-esteem online, where else CAN I pretend?

[Austruck]

Oh, and yeah, I like the fun you can have with my maiden name. The whole family had fun with it. We all had/have personalized license plates with different variations:

Me (the writer): AU-THR
My mom (the pessimist): AU-FOOY
My dad (the optimist): AU-YEAH
My brother (the radio DJ): AU-SUMM

Online, "Austruck" just started back in my AOL days and I've ended up using it everywhere. Go figger.

[TWTCommish]

Yup, and she even got a domain name to keep with that trend:
http://www.austruck.com

I designed the graphics, layout, and database. Yup: the whole thing. I also systematically neglected it beforehand, and now again since it's not quite done. I'm close, though.

Besides, how many mothers with personal sites can say that their site is run with Hypertext Preproccesor includes and an automated news/article archival/posting system with a MySQL (Structured Query Language) backend? :p

[Austruck]

Hey, watch yer language, you little showoff!

SPEAK ENGLISH! DON'T THEY HAVE A FORUM FOR YOU TECHNOGEEKS IN HERE ALREADY? :)

Sheesh.

By the way, consider this a reminder to make sure we get that site up and running this weekend, OKAY? I mean, it's been a year and I haven't done much of anything with it yet!

(Another pet peeve -- people who start projects and never finish them, which means I'm my own pet peeve!)

[roldfiel]

You wanna talk about frustrating? Try learning how to type on a cyrillic keyboard! I can type about 50-60 words a minute in english, but now I am trying to type my final paper in russian and it takes me close to an hour for each paragraph. Of course that does include translation of unknown words, but still!!!!!!!!

[blinc]

I've never even heard of a cryllic keyboard. Oh my, I'd just have to run from the room screaming. In fact, just the thought of having to do that Roldfiel...

AAaaaiiiiieeeeee!!
*runs from the room screaming in terror*

[kezzer]

*joins blinc in the mad dash*
Eek! I'd just give up! I don't have that much patience. You must get so frustrated when it takes that long.

[Karenluvs6]

I couldn't deal with that....I have no patience at all. When I am having trouble on this puter, I just give up....shut it down and try again at a different time.
taking three hours to type my thoughts on one page, just wouldn't cut it for me.

[roldfiel]

Well, I guess it was a toss up between having the spell check or not. If I do it by hand I don't have the spell check to help out with the tons of mistakes. However, it isn't finished today, so looks like I will be writing it by hand. Oh, well. The cyrillic keyboard is kinda cool except it has both the roman alphabet like a normal keyboard and the cyrillic alphabet as well. To go from one language to the other is the toughest!!!

[Karenluvs6]

that would drive me crazy!
those keyboards must be what makes ppl's writing look so cool....to clarify:
I have a friend over the internet.....he's only 17 yrs old....He and I were both regulars at an interactive comedy site....(really cool site!)
anyhoo....he writes to me all the time....and IM's me too....everytime he does he has his name done in really cool lettering and stuff....it looks awesome, but me being old and everything....well, I kind of feel embarrassed asking him how does he do that.....ya know?
I wanna type my name in funny letters too!!!!! {bawling}

[TWTCommish]

What IM program do you use? If it's AIM, contact me under "WarningTrack" and I can walk you through it. Other than, I only use MSN Messenger (thewarningtrack@hotmail.com).

Be warned, though: most people (myself included) despise bright colors in IMs, like a black BG and white text, or odd fonts.