Grammar Police

C'mon people.  Please start learning and using good grammar and spelling. We can't understand what you want to say when you use loose instead of lose.  Or their instead of there or they're.  Learn the difference between hear and here.  And fergawd's sake, no more apostrophe esses on the ends of words unless it's a contraction. See: It's. Contraction for it is.  Easy, right?  Well, do it then.

Teachers, are you teaching grammar?  Do any of you teach your students about hour and our, affect and effect?  Do you know the difference?

Is it because I write for a living that I object to your bad grammar and spelling? I don't think so. I think it's (see, a contraction again.) because I love to read and therefore, want to understand what you are writing and I simply cannot do it when I see your instead of you're.  It distracts from what you are saying and makes us look at all your mistakes instead of reading what you have to say.  It also makes us think you really don't know what you are talking about because you don't know how to tell us what you are talking about.

Do you just not care? If you don't care, stop writing.  If you didn't learn, start now. 

Read. That's a good way to learn good grammar.

Stop foisting your bad words on us if you want us to stop laughing at you. Or simply not understand what you are trying to say. Stop writing in code unless the rest of the world uses the same code you do.

Breathe, breath:  Please learn the difference between these words.  One is a verb and the other a noun. You breathe.  You take a breath.  Now might be a good time to do that.

Clothes, cloths:  You wear clothes.  Chances are you uses cloths as rags with which to clean the bathroom.  You do that, don't you?

Lightning, lightening:  Lightning strikes during a storm and engenders thunder.  Lightening is what happens when you lose weight.  Or when the sun comes up. The sky lightens.  

And for heaven's sake, alot is not a word. Nor is alright.  If you must, say a lot if you mean many.  All right is two words, not one.  I don't care who uses it improperly. It's still wrong.

I don't care who you are, do not use one letter for an entire word. U is not a word. 4 is not for, nor is it four.  This is not some new English you are speaking.  It is an uneducated, unlearned, impossible to understand code you are trying to use to communicate. And you are failing.

I often think I am reading English written by someone for whom it is a second language, sort of like the customer service people at the cable company.

So if you don't work in customer service, write your native language properly. 

And so says the curmudgeon.