Dec 7, 2008

Grammar, please

For the last time:

Breath is what you take, breathe is the act of taking breaths.

Spelt is a grain, spelled is the past tense of spell.

Their, There & They're - Possession, location & contraction, respectively. There shouldn't have to be a Facebook quiz about this!

Width = how wide
Depth = how deep
Heighth = NOT A WORD. Were you thinking of height? Yes, I think you were.

That is all.

Dork out.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen.

Recently I've also become aggravated by "wrote" vs. "written." I have a coworker who seems to be allergic to the word "written". According to this coworker, someone "wrote" something, but also something was "wrote"... I believe it is against this coworker's religion to ever say "written." I actually almost smacked this person the other day and shouted "No, it wasn't 'wrote;' it was written!"

Rachel Katz Carey said...

I couldn't agree more.

But....

Aren't you supposed to be competing for the Nerd King Crown over at www.awesometheband.com?

PS: That was one beautiful sunset

Anonymous said...

Apostrophes = more than one apostrophe.
Apostrophe's = belonging to an apostrophe. Indicates possession.

It's = 'It is.' For this word the apostrophe only is used for the contraction.
Its = All other instances. If your dog owned a Chrysler and you wished to indicate possession without specifying your dog's gender, you would refer to said Chrysler as "Its Chrysler." Your dog being the "it."

Basil said...

Yes, thank you, flaminbanjo: it's vs. its. That's another big one for me, too.

Anonymous said...

My favorite lately has been the quote-emphasis. For example:

Stop pests "for good"!

Recently seen on one of those little corrugated plastic roadside signs. No comment on putting the punctuation outside the quote marks, since they're clearly not intended as quote marks. How do you comment on style when there's no style present?

Basil said...

The random use of quotes confounds and enrages me. It's as if people have taken the misuse of air quotes and reincorporated them back into written form! What to they mean?

done.made.said said...

Again, wow. But it's a totally different sort of wow.

More of a "it's a whole new world" sort of wow.

BTW, I meant those quotes to indicate singing the theme from Disney's Aladin. So please don't get mad at me. I just forgot the rule for indicating that one is singing a Disney tune.

Tina Rowley said...

First of all, amen.

Second of all...Grammar Police, Internal Affairs.

Breathing = act of
Breathe = not act, since verb

While we have our dork on.

But pah, booh. Larger point greatly appreciated.

Basil said...

Tina, if you weren't so damn right, I would be angry. As it is, I simply tip my hat in appreciation. And love, that too.

And hey, let's all be careful out there.

bugbytelove said...

Well, you completely ignored my personal petty piss-off:

Insure Vs ensure:

Insure is what you do to a car, just in case you decide to smooosh another car.

Ensure is to make damn sure something happens.

All my armhairs get frazzled when I read that somebody wants to insure that I have a great meal at ____! Crap, now pay attention because you're going to start noticing this all over the place. If you haven't already.

Basil said...

Classic rookie mistake. I will now begin to notice it everywhere, it's true.