Sunday, January 4, 2009

Engrish by people who speak English.

In a country where English is one of the national languages, you'd expect its people to actually know the basics of English grammar. Below is a list of the most common yet easily avoidable grammar mistakes in the English language made by people who, if not speak English in person, use English online all the time.

  • Writing "loose" instead of "lose". "Loose" generally means the opposite of tight. People normally want to say "lose", i.e. the opposite of win or the act of misplacing something.
  • Switching "you're" with "your". "You're" is short for "you are". "Your" refers to when something belongs to you.
  • Mixing up "they're", "there" and "their". "They're" = They are. "There" = e.g. There they are; There is. "Their" = When something belongs to them.
  • Adding an apostrophe in a word's plural form. Two balls. Not two "ball's".

Those are just a few but some of the most common grammar mistakes found on the Internet. Call me a grammar Nazi, but we learned this stuff right after we stopped wearing diapers. So get them right.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

well thank you, i must shamefully admit that even though I've spoken English as a first language all my life I make loads of those mistakes and now I finally know the exact difference hopefully I'll make less :)