At some point in almost all of my university filled days, my phone will vibrate to alert me of an incoming text and the bottom of my computer screen will flash in the usual MSN message orange. So today I flip open my phone, and it reads, “I spoke to Kevin. Their on there way!” I then check my MSN, which says “Your not gonna believe what happened last night...” Ok, so I’m excited that my friend is coming, and am now curious to hear about the previous night’s shenanigans, but as I read these messages, I can’t help but grind my teeth and question how it’s possible for us to either a) be this lazy or b) be this... silly... for lack of a better word... as not to know the difference between some of the most basic and commonly used words in the English language.
What seriously boggles my mind is the extent to which these words are misused and the variety of people who misuse them... There is really no excuse that anyone with at least a grade 8 education should not be able to differentiate between the contraction of “YOU” and “ARE” to create “YOU’RE” and the possessive form of “YOU” which is “YOUR”. Same thing applies to perhaps the more tricky disparities between “THEY’RE” “THERE” and “THEIR”. If most people actually know the right usage but are simply lazy to type/write it out, well, that right there is a clear indicator of our increasing laziness and ignorance, which is not any better than not knowing the difference in the first place.
All I’m saying is I don’t fully get it, and it never ceases to get under my skin when I see these mistakes being made by friends, managers, doctors, and even public institutions. It’s been said that we are very much in the process of destroying the English language, and to me, this is one of those silent snipers, capable of doing much more damage than originally perceived.
-V. Brejkaln
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