Tuesday, August 24, 2010

That Sound? Its My Sole Weeping.

Dear Internet:

I love you. I do. However, I have noticed a disturbing trend, a trend I cannot sit idly by and merely watch. I must step in, protest, curl up into the fetal position and cry and in a corner, if nothing else.

Spell check.

You see, spell check can be your friend, if you don't know how to spell a word. Just get close enough, spell check it and get the correct spelling. It's great. Unfortunately, spell check doesn't know the difference between the correctly spelled word you want and the correctly spelled word you don't want.

For example, we used to have an associate at the firm who was forever referencing the Untied States of America. He just couldn't figure out why the spell checker wouldn't pick that one up. As disturbing as this trend is, it's even more troubling when encountered in the blogs of homeschoolers, as in people teaching their children that "its" and "it's" are the same damn word. *sigh*

Anyway, for your edification, a few homonyms to ponder.

rein/reign/rain:

Rain is what falls from the sky.
Reins are what you control a horse with. As in "reining someone in" to mean controlling someone's behavior.
Reign is what a king does.

sole/soul:

A sole is the bottom of your shoe.
My soul is what you are hurting when you confuse these words.

threw/through:

You threw the rock through the window. Of my soul.

toe/tow:

Toes are at the end of your feet. You toe the line, btw.
Tow is what a tow truck does with your car when it breaks down.

here/hear:

Here is where I am.
You hear my words.

heel/heal:

Heel is the back end of your foot, as in "high heels".
Heal is what doctors do to your injuries. Jesus has never heeled your wounds. I hope.

bated/baited:

You baited the fishing line with worms.
You wait with bated breath.

by/buy:

You buy an iphone at the store by the mall.

no/know:

C'mon, people, really?

your/you're/yore:

You're reading your favorite blog right now, but in the days of yore there were no blogs.

they're/their/there:

They're enjoying their favorite music over there in the parking lot.

Feel free to add, oh, wait-

ad/add:

Ad is short for advertisement.
Add is what you do when you put 2 and 2 together to make 4.

Ahem, feel free to add your favorites to the comments. I'll be over here in a corner weeping quietly.

23 comments:

  1. Also: The effect of these kinds of grammatical errors is to effect negative change in my affect, which affects my day poorly. So poorly, in fact, that I notice my pores starting to clog from the stress.

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  2. Also:

    You can feel free to try to intercept a rampaging horde of puppies, but don't mess with a dragon's hoard.

    When the military is necessary to battle dragons, in order to entertain the troops, the USO usually sends a troupe of singers.

    It's best to be sitting in a stationary position if you want to write a thank you note to the USO on your nice stationery.

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  3. Oh, and dragons are scary, so when you're battling one, you're allowed to cry aloud.

    And though dragons can fly, you have my assent to make an ascent in a tree if you think it'll keep you out of reach of the dragon's flaming breath.

    But there's aught you can do about it if there's nothing natural to hide behind, so you ought to bring a flame-retardant shield with you.

    Once you've defeated the dragon, don't be surprised if there's a band waiting to play you a victory tune. But don't be disappointed if any toons are banned, because if you've ever seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit, you know that toons really aren't very well-behaved.

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  4. Loose your mind!
    Lose the Dogs of War!

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  5. I just think it's very important that people know these things. (About the dragons, not the homonyms.)

    Uzza, don't lose the dogs of war! We need their aid in fighting the dragons! Unless you have an aide who's willing to feint deftly about the dragons while you go find the dogs, I'm going to faint!

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  6. "Hey, what's wrong?"

    "I lost the Dogs of War."

    "You loosed the Dogs of War? That's terrible!"

    "No, no, I lost them. I have no idea where the the Dogs of War are."

    "Oh, that's worse."

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  7. Right? We'd better find them. Uzza is going to single-handedly lose us the Dragon War. I'd peek in that dark cave near the peak of that mountain to see if they're hiding in it. But I'm afraid of the dark, and Uzza's ability to lose the Dogs of War has really piqued my ire.

    Let's take a poll and see who's in favor of using a big, blunt pole to threaten Uzza with until she finds the Dogs of War. I mean, this is not good. If they're lost for more than a few days, we're all going to be in a daze at the destruction the dragons will have done.

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  8. What if the teeming masses of Dogs of War team up with the Dragons? Then we're more screwed than a chicken at a KFC convention!

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  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  10. Ahem.

    Well, it would be really foul if we ended up in a comparable position to fowl at a KFC convention. We'd better revise our strategy.

    Perhaps we can find a seer to keep the dragons from searing us? Or if there's no ordinance against it where the dragons' lair is, we can always just pile up a butt-load of ordnance. I guess we don't want to overdo it and damage the environment, but really, those dragons are overdue for an ass-whooping. Every time I look through the window's pane and see the destruction the dragons have wrought, it causes me great pain and I just want them to rot. They're such mean creatures and their claim of a respectable mien is totally bogus.

    Anyway, I apologize for jumping to the conclusion that Uzza had lost us the war by losing us the cooperation of the Dogs of War. Until we come up with another plan, I'd say we could pray that we don't become dragon prey, but we are on an atheist blog, so...

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  11. seem/seam

    public/pubic (you have no idea how many pubic consultations I've had in the past year!)

    from/form

    bear/bare

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  12. "A pubic consultation? No, that's okay, I'm pretty familiar with the hair around my genitals, I don't need your help. Thanks anyway!"

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  13. After taking a pique at you're remark's, I'm passed the point of loosing my patients'.
    I wouldn't of tried too set them straight if I'd of known the affect would be there dragon in a slough of insults and its two much too bare.
    They're is no excuse, irregardless I'm to busy to waist thyme on yore cite.

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  14. There is only one word in the English language that ends in f-u-l-l, That's the word full. No cupfull, no handfull, no housefull.

    No worshipfull either.

    And as for the spoken word, that's an R after the B in February, not a Y.

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  15. Cynical Nymph beat me to effect/affect/affect/effect, so I'll just link to XKCD.

    http://xkcd.com/326/

    Also, despite the awesome pwnage in this thread, I'm not entirely sure Americans are allowed to comment on language abuse after what you did to the poor sweet English language. Removing all the U's and replacing the S's with Z's: that's just cruel.

    There there little one, it's okay, the mean Americans can't hurt you anymore... [pats English on the head gently]

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  16. This thread makes Baby Grammy cry. Even moreso when one realizes it’s still above the grammatical standards of most blogs/sites/forums out there.

    Myself, my only real problem was with words with either “ei” or “ie”. I kept mixing them up; only recently did I finally get a ruddy grip on that.

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  17. can't. breathe. for. laughing.




    unless it's "breath".

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  18. In the past, he always passed the high school. Yesterday, he went past it one last time.

    Uh oh.... :(

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  19. I sometime browse a “whore board.” That’s a place where hookers and the men who give them money for various services communicate about their respective desires in the world of “pay for play”. Although some hookers are actually smart, but on average hookers tend to be less educated than the average non-hooker of the same age.

    What bugs me on that board is that ladies often confuse ad and add. Those words are so distinctly different that I’m surprised that any English speaker would confuse the two. Then again, I’ve seen ads where ladies quote $80 for a half hour and $200 for an hour. Guys wonder if she has a serious case of innumeracy or if the ad was posted by an illiterate pimp.

    I understand why many confuse effect and affect. Their pronunciations are similar and their meanings are related. But ad and add? Face palm time.

    -Mike K

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Comments are for you guys, not for me. Say what you will. Don't feel compelled to stay on topic, I enjoy it when comments enter Tangentville or veer off into Non Sequitur Town. Just keep it polite, okay?

I am attempting to use blogger's new comment spam feature. If you don't immediately see your comment, it is being held in spam, I will get it out next time I check the filter. Unless you are Dennis Markuze, in which case you're never seeing your comment.

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Forever in Hell by Personal Failure is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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