Kim,

I have had this conversation so many times! Sometimes people get it, other times they still want to argue about it.

Good job getting describing the rules with examples so succinctly.

~Kristin

I guess people think a simple pronoun such as "you" or "me" doesn't sound "important" enough, or professional enough, or something.

Another thing that bugs me, though it's not related to this and maybe Ii shouldn't even bring it up here, is spelling "tail" as "tell". In certain parts of the U.S. (and maybe in parts of Canada too, I'm not sure, some words with a long "a" sound followed by an L sound, are pronounced almost as if the vowel is a short "e" instead.. this doesn't happen with every word (I've never heard "mail" pronounced "mel", for instance), but for some reason it happens a lot with "tale" and "tail". That's fine, every area has differences in pronunciation!

But it bugs me people spell "tail" or "tale" as "tell", and it seems as this is something that's only started happening in the last 10 years or so, or maybe I'm noticing it more because of the Internet. I'll be reading along merrily and suddenly a sentence appears that makes no sense whatsoever: "When you start your base chain, be sure to leave a long tell of yarn so you can use it to sew your granny squares together." "I've designed a catnip mouse, but I'm not sure how to make a realistic-looking tell." "I hate intarsia because there are always all those tells to contend with." Or even "My daughter said they are going to be reading "A Tell of Two Cities" in her English class this year." Aaarrgh!!!!

Dang, here I am complaining about people's spelling, and I spell "I" as "Ii" and leave off a closing parenthesis! Sorry about that.

OMG! You have just pushed a (grammer) button for me. This issue is invading every aspect of life: newspapers, television, the internets. I hope the publishing houses keep up with the problem because books are one place that I hope to not find "there" interchangable with "their". I'm glad I'm not alone.

"I guess people think a simple pronoun such as "you" or "me" doesn't sound "important" enough, or professional enough, or something."

I've heard that idea before, Norah. It makes sense. How can we convince people it makes them sound like they're trying too hard?

I've never seen the "tell" spelling you mention, but "alot" is ubiquitous. (Granted, that's a spelling error of a different sort.) It's not like any part of the rest of English should lead anyone to think it's spelled phonetically...

Alas, I gave up on spelling errors long ago. I'll gripe about a failure to use universally-available spell check tools, but English really is a PIA to spell. Using the wrong pronoun, though. YOWZA.

Oh, speaking of spell check tools, have y'all started using Firefox 2.0 yet? It's got *built in* spell check.

Yes! I am so with you! The pastor at my church has that pronoun problem big time. I think it's because kids are taught that you never say, "Me and Jimmy went to the store." They're told it's supposed to be "Jimmy and I went to the store," which is right of course, but I think the point sticks too well. My pastor will say, "to you and I," for example, which is bad enough. But then he'll sometimes expand it a bit by saying, "to you and to..." at which point he often hesitates a bit, usually starting to say "I" and then changing it to "me". Sometimes he just goes ahead and says, "to you and to I." Augh!

Another one I noticed recently was people writing "could of" instead of "could've".

If it helps anybody on the their/there/they're front, here's how I remember:

Their: Has the word "heir" in it, so it has to do with possession.

There: Has the word "here" in it, so it has to do with a place.

They're: Apostrophes replace letters. This means "they are". Some people get hung up with apostrophes signifying possession (also a problem with its/it's). All they have to remember is that isn't the case with pronouns. You don't write "hi's" or "her's" after all.

One thing I have a bit of trouble with, though, is punctuation with quotation marks. I know you would write: Joe said, "Nice weather." However, I wasn't sure when I should use commas with all my quotes above. Was my "grammar sense" correct, or did I mess up? Also, did I put periods inside quotes at the right times?

Hi Rod -

Ah, the comma. I use them as intuition dictates, except when strict rules of punctuation come in, as in your example. In your example, the comma isn't used to insert a pause, it's used for convention, and the convention differs by location - the rules aren't the same in the UK and in the US, for example. The way you wrote it looks perfect to me, in accord with the US rules I've learned: place a comma before the quote, capitalize the first word of the quote if it's the start of someone speaking, and put the concluding punctuation within the quotation marks. Brits put the concluding punctuation outside the quotation marks, if I'm not mistaken. The internet is a pretty equalizing force: whereas I once found it distracting to see final punctuation outside a quote, I now find it pleasing and I think it makes a lot of sense.

The thing I'm really a stickler for is comprehensible writing. Whether we stick punctuation within or outside of quotation marks is generally of no consequence to whether readers understand what we're writing. Lots of online writers, however, haven't yet mastered use of the comma for style, and I find their writing to be impenetrable (whether it's because commas are absent, leading to rambling sentences I don't find worth the effort, or because commas are used inappropriately, thus ruining the flow of the text).

Sounds good to me. :)

If you haven't already, reading the book, "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" is one of the most gratifying experiences around for the grammar-hound. My biggest grammar pet peeve is the apostrophe showing up in all sorts of places, or being absent when it shouldn't. The author of the book made a giant apostrophe and put it up next to the "S" on the billboard for the movie, "Two Weeks Notice." Ah. And there's a t-shirt I'd love to get that says: Bad Grammar Makes Me [sic]. Most succinct.

Hey MaryKate - I second your recommendation of the book. It's an easy read and she's a good writer.

Ah! Having a mother who graded countless essays and reports while providing a running commentary (rant) at the kitchen table has certainly contributed to your grammar code. Most of the errors you all have mentioned should have been corrected in elementary school.

Question: Do you think that the focus on "whole language" reading and writing instruction contributed to the volume of grammar errors among the twenty-to-thirty year-old writers? I wonder if the acceptance of "invented spelling" and "free-writing" dulled the need to conform to conventional grammar and punctuation rules. I always told my students that they must first be rich and famous before they could be considered innovative, rather than poorly educated, when breaking the rules.

Way to go getting all "pedagogical theory" on us, Mom.

:)

This grammatical issue certainly isn't generation-specific. In fact, I find lots of *older* bloggers write terrible prose online and in email.

Also, I can't recall the methodologies used to teach me to read, but I do recall learning pretty much ALL of my English-language grammar in French class. Granted, I figure there's a level of analytical accessibility involved in studying the grammar of a second language that can't easily be teased out from the familiarity of a native language - so it might just be that French grammar was easier for me to learn because I learned it at the same time I learned the language in general. By the time we come to study grammar in elementary school, we're already fluent speakers of the language so examining it in grammatical terms is odd and difficult. I doubt a whole language vs. phonics war will effectively solve that (heh - possibly as evidenced by the continued debate).

i don't pretend to have perfect grammar. i end sentences with prepositions all of the time.

however, this whole me, myself and i thing drives my nuts. phew, i'm glad to know i've been right all of this time.

Dude - if you never ended a sentence with a preposition you'd sound stodgy and awkward. IMO, that's about the least-worthy-of-attention grammar rule around (heh).

Mom + Kim -- being surrounded by poor grammar and spelling examples doesn't help, either (see: "drive-thru" window, one of my pet peeves, or the "10 items or less" express checkout, which drives my aunt crazy)!

Less vs. fewer errors drive me crazy, too!