Common Riting Errors

As the progeny of an elementary school teacher and the chair of a collegiate former English Department, and as a child who grew up without a TV, I was doomed to become literate. Not only that, I was probably fated to become an English teacher.

Of course I didn't accept my destiny without a struggle: my dad graduated from college summa cum laude - I was on the honor roll for a semester of my sophomore year in high school; my parents could barely walk and chew gum simultaneously - I played every contact sport I could; fervent pacifists, my parents marched in anti-Vietnam war parades - I rooted for Israel in the Six-Day war and for Joe Frazier in the Thrilla in Manila.

They say that children inherit the sins of their parents, but what they don't say is that children also inherit the virtues. I got some of both.

My parents worshipped at the altar of good writing: I remember falling asleep to Robert Fitzgerald's Odyssey and being reminded ad nauseam that "less" needs to be used before singular nouns while "fewer" is to be used before plural nouns. Thus spake Mom: "If Stephen doesn't shovel the driveway, take out the trash, and keep his room clean, Stephen will get less of an allowance, which will result in fewer dollars in his pocket."

How I hated those lessons . . . but, as much as I hate to admit it, they're still with me today. In fact, I have been guilty of doing what I promised myself years I ago I would never do - inflicting them on others, mostly adolescent American Lit students who had too many hormones coursing through their veins and whom I was attempting to teach how to communicate intelligently. Good kids but they were about as interested in when to use "who" and "whom" correctly as they were in the English teacher geek behind my desk.

Yet, even today, I admire good writing, and I abhor sloppy diction and common grammatical transgressions. Perhaps the error that bugs me the most is the omnipresent "it's" used as the possessive. Though the apostrophe usually connotes possession, it also is evidence that a letter (or letters) is missing.

Thus the classic Shakespearean vulgarity "‘Sblood" is a contraction of "God's blood." Similarly, "it's" does not mean belonging to it but instead connotes a contraction of "it is." If you're in the know, you will be amazed by how often this is misused, even in the most reputable of publications.

Another common error based on possessive-contraction confusion is "your" and "you're." As everyone knows, "your" is a possessive pronoun while "you're" is a contraction of "you" and "are." Once again, for something that every mildly literate person knows, it's disturbing how often the two are exchanged.

There can be great satisfaction in crafting sentence, in turning a phrase, in creating a pleasing series of sounds that have a voice of their own. Even if you're not that interested in the art of the page, it's essential in today's world to be able to communicate clearly and concisely. No one would want to confuse "their dogs" with "they're dogs" (more on homophones later).

If you're not confident about your writing, it's ok because before you print out a final draft of your efforts, you can always do two things: 1) run it through a spellchecker; and 2) proofread it, or, even better, have someone else proof it for you.

The key is to proofread is to check carefully because if you don't someone is bound to notice and then you'll be thought of as ignorant at best and stoopid at worst.

--Steve McKibben
4/16/06