I have never seen as much mix up of homonymns in my life until these past few years. To be honest, it truly irks me when I see these mix ups in Islamic writings, flyers (especially), and advertisements. Isn’t it enough that Muslims are labeled terrorists? Do we want them to label us illiterates too?
Ok, that may be a little over the top, but seriously, I don’t think it hurts to do some extra editing before those flyers go out to the masses. Of course, this may be a pet peeve of some people, and not a big deal to others, and I can see where it’s not a big deal. As long as the message gets across, I guess that’s the most important thing. Maybe it’s just me who wants to kick it up a notch. Maybe it’s just me.
Regardless, I was doing some final editing on a booklet this morning, when I suddenly found myself lost in a world of commas and lists. So I googled ‘grammar rules list commas’. I right clicked. My one-sided clicks landed me on Copyblogger, on a particular post called, Five Grammatical Errors that Make You Look Dumb. Ditto.
When homeschooling my kids, I also came across this exercise; differentiating between their and there, it’s and its, your and you’re. Good inclusion of grammar lessons. I don’t remember doing that kind of exercises back when I was learning grammar. Then again, that was donkey years ago. I guess it’s one of those common mistakes people make. Where I, a non native speaker struggle with the verbal aspect of English, the native speakers seem to struggle with the grammatical aspect. Very interesting indeed.
As for my lists and commas, I learned something new, or maybe, I was just caught in one of those mesmerizing moments of commas, that I forgot all rules of lists and commas. But, I like this here google result:
I don’t claim to be a grammar specialist. I just know it sounds off, and reads off, but I don’t necessarily know why all the time. So their! Your welcome! Its a wonderful world!
Don’t your eyes just hurt?
3 Comments
January 26, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Part of the confusion includes conflicting rules amongst different standards, if not regarding commas and apostrophes, then with rules of quotations. In elementary & middle school I recall learning one style of writing, while in high school, and specifically in 11th grade, we suddenly switched to the MLA style for one English class. I grew to despise MLA because, along with being different, some of the rules (at least the ones I remember) actually seemed counter-intuitive for me. I’ve long since repressed the memories of which ones, though, so I cannot cite any specifics at this time.
A while ago I purchased the book “The Elements of Style”, and I found it very refreshing. It’s great because, without stating absolutes, it’s a book that makes a case for good writing that is UNDERSTANDABLE. I think we emphasize some rules too much to the point that what people are saying becomes unclear. I used to say, “Grammar is an impediment to communication”. That’s not to say it’s not correct to use good grammar. It’s just that I think some grammar rules hinder communication rather than make it clear.
One rule that I outright disagree with, and my rebelliousness is quite apparent in the above paragraph, is punctuation inside of quotes. I believe a quote is a self-contained entity. If it has it’s own punctuation, that’s fine. But if it doesn’t, I’m not going to force my sentence’s punctuation to fall inside the quote, because it doesn’t belong there!
In conclusion, though, sometimes I think it’s hopeless to discuss grammar in English. English is one of the worst languages I know of when it comes to rules and consistency, whether it is spelling, grammar, or other language constructs. But it’s the one I’m stuck with for now.
But I agree with you that when someones poster or flier lack’s proper punctuation or grammer than it impedes there message alot.
January 27, 2009 at 2:09 pm
jazakallah khair Basil,
I can only smile.
You have Malay and Arabic. You’re not stuck with English.
January 27, 2009 at 2:17 pm
and laugh …:D