it's=it is, its=the possessive form of it, you're=you are, your=the

[LosinIt]

possessive form of you, they're=they are, their=the possessive form of they....
Sorry just had to get that out. I must be premenstrual, but this drives me absolutely nuts!!

[trotsky]

1. Its driving me crazy to.

;-)

Seriously, I'm with ya.

[LosinIt]

2. sorry, but didn't you mean too as in also???

I am such a little bitch

[LosinIt]

4. unless you did that on purpose???

[trotsky]

6. Oh, perhaps...

:evilgrin:

[jukes]

26. "too"

= also, you nutdriver!

[Maddy McCall]

3. I don't think it is ignorance that causes people to make these mistakes...

Just typos that occur when folks type fast to respond to posts. It's happened to all of us at sometime, I bet.

[Bertha Venation]

9. I'm certain that it IS ignorance. In places other than DU, that is.

;)

It is ignorance. It's part of the text message* culture.

* I refuse to say "messaging."

[LosinIt]

10. the typo I make most often when typing is you instead of your

my fingers fly right past that r I guess.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

29. Solution: Proofread, duh

"I don't think it is ignorance that causes people to make these mistakes. Just typos that occur when folks type fast to respond to posts. It's happened to all of us at sometime, I bet." Posted by jchild

Of course. Thoughtful people proofread their postings before submission. A thoughtful writer writes for the benefit of the readers and in ways that make it easiest for the reader to understand the writer's thought. Proofreading is a necessary part of the process.

Of course, if one's intention is to inflate one's posting numbers or one's ego, blast away.

[Maddy McCall]

33. I don't post to "inflate my numbers," or for some masturbatory exercise...

but sometimes I do send, and later reread, and see that I said "their" when I meant "they are."

If I am writing a research article, I am excruciatingly careful. On an informal message board, though, I post for meaning, and not to demonstrate my grammatical expertise.

Edited because I wanted to make sure not to make any errors on this kind of thread.

[BigMcLargehuge]

5. your just being finicky about there word choices

:evilgrin:

Believe me, such misuse always makes me wince. Worse, when I see it in my writing... DOH!

[MercutioATC]

7. Well, then I've been premenstrual for the past 20 years...

...and I'm a guy.

It's one of my pet peeves.

[gpandas]

8. i prefer to think it is...

haste in posting that causes these errors. everybody here went to grade school, right?

[LynzM]

14. Yeah, but...

You can graduate from high school not knowing this stuff. Heck, you can graduate from college and not know it. I proofread for our college paper. It was atrocious at times. And the corporate emails I get are full of this kind of misuse. Drives me crazy!

[gpandas]

19. as the bar of education goes lower and lower...

if one can write this trash and graduate high school, then i wonder if there is any hope for our educational system. i graduated from high school in 1961, from a school building built in 1920. discipline was the norm, and discipline is necessary to learn these simple rules. can it be a lack of discipline causing this?

[tilsammans]

23. Thank you for saying "graduate FROM high school"!

I HATE "graduate/graduated high school"!

Where in the world did that ever originate? How does anyone graduate from anything, speaking like that?

:puke:

[likesmountains 52]

11. drives me crazy too

but I really wince when people say they're "nauseous" instead of nauseated.

[catmandu57]

12. Well then,

how about thier for their?

[truthspeaker]

13. and plural of Iraqi is Iraqis

Iraqi's is possessive.

[hackwriter]

15. It makes me nuts too

Don't worry, it makes me nuts too. In my book, people just don't sound smart if they use constructs like this. It's just not that difficult.

[Terran]

16. Read "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by Lynne Truss

A wonderful and funny book about, of all things, punctuation! She had me laughing out loud about the proper use of apostrophes. It turns out that you, LosinIt, and I, and several others on this thread, belong to a sub-category of the human race known as Sticklers.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861976127/202-2999828-2694243

[terrya]

18. GREAT book! Lynne Truss is a delight.

This is a terrific, funny book if you care about language and punctuation. A marvelous, informative book.

Terry

[JVS]

17. You tell those semi-literate troglodytes what's up!

[bleedingedge]

20. Anybody else noticing an epidemic of...

"take a peak at this" or similar use of "peak" instead of "peek"? I've seen that four times in the last year from four different people. I fear we're not terribly far from a day when the spelling of the word is utterly meaningless as long as the letters add up to the proper sound - let the reader figure it out.

[mrboba1]

21. I usually get it right

but sometimes I type so fast that I skip an '

Sorry

[BiggJawn]

22. Thanks.

I get its and it's fucked up all the time. I had it backwards...

[Sweet Freedom]

24. and "a lot" is two words

That one drives me crazy.

[tilsammans]

25. And "alright"!

Don't get me started.

[Karenina]

27. I am DEFINITELY irked

seeing the word "definite" spelled d-e-f-i-n-a-t-e.
IT'S DEFINITIVELY DEFINITE DAMMIT!

Thanx. I needed to get that off my chest.

[arwalden]

28. I no what you mean. Your so right! Their not paying attention.

And its driving me crazy.

-- Allen

[LosinIt]

31. Allen, you are such a smartass!

[arwalden]

32. Well yes... yes I am. Sorry.

[arwalden]

30. This shouldn't be aloud anymore.

[LynzM]

35. Smartass for sure :)

But funny, which is appreciated. :evilgrin:

I'm off to find that book on Amazon now... seems like something I would enjoy!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

34. Subject Lines should not be fragmented beginnings of paragraphs

What's with so many Subject lines on DU? I've not seen this phenomenon anywhere else, except in miniscule quantities. Here on DU, so many people start typing an opening sentence in the Subject box and just continue it in the Message box when the Subject box quickly runs out of words. This makes them hard to read and understand. I've begun reading a message, find it makes no sense, realize that it is a continuation of the Subject line, go back and begin reading at the subject line on into the message, and finally what the writer was trying to say becomes understandable. What a waste of time. Subject Lines are a summary of the posting, not a fragment of the post.

The only reason I can think why this would happen so frequently at DU is that many people are more interested in posting for their own purposes rather than to be understood by the reader. Thus they write as quickly as possible and push Post Message as quickly as possible.