Improving Your Grammar
Created and written by Singed
Yes that's right, I'm going back to the basics. However it's for a very good reason; since the internet has become more popular, I've seen many, many users, particularly on forums who don't often have English as their first language and have it as their secondary instead.
There are a few things that I'd like to point out that I see pretty much on a daily basis.
I'll begin with these:
- There
- They're
- Their
I see these constantly misused and it's a real shame because it's so easy to know how they work.
There is used if you're implying that an object/person or something is in a particular location for e.g. "Look at that over there!".
They're is used as a contracted form of They are that's simple enough to remember...
Their is used to imply someone's ownership over something for e.g. It was their shoes lying on the ground.
Now just to make things crystal clear for you guys, I'll use all three of them in one sentence: They're going for a walk over there due to their last spot being to messy. (Yeah I know it's corny
)It's and Its are commonly misused but it's so simple to differentiate between the two.
It's is used simply as a contraction for 'It is'. For e.g. "It's a huge wave heading this way."
Its is used to determine something's ownership if it hasn't been given a label beforehand or a scenario such as you don't know the gender of an animal and you want to declare the ownership of something that the animal has.
For e.g. "The dog attempted to clean itself but it ended up falling flat on its ass."
The word 'your' is another highly misused one;
the usage for 'your' would be when your directing someone's ownership over something.
For example, "What time are your tennis lessons?".
The other one is 'you're'. This is simply a contraction of 'You are' and it may be used in certain situations such as: "You're doing so well in tennis!"
To help clarify the difference between these two, I'll use them in the same sentence: "Your tennis skills are simply amazing, you're going to enter the tournament right?".
Two, to and too are ones that almost everyone mistakes every now and then...
The usage of Two is pretty much self explanatory; it's simply the number 2
The real confusion occurs with to and too.
To is used on an extremely frequent basis and is simply used to join other words together or stringing verbal phrases for e.g. "He wanted to join the game because so many others were doing the same."
Too is used for basically copying something another person has done or said. For e.g. Person 1: "I just jumped off that cliff and did a backflip into the water!"
Person 2: "I just did that too!" In addition to this, you may use As well or Also to keep things a bit variable.
Another thing I should point out is A lot. So many people say Alot but this is in-fact, incorrect
Hopefully by now I haven't managed to confuse you to much
Another thing I've seen that looks terrible is tense confusion; I'll be using the word 'was' as an example. Some members will say things like: "They was trying to scam me!". This isn't the right usage of tense; if it's something that's already occurred (past tense), then you would use 'were' in this instance. If it's going to be future tense, you would use the word 'will'
I am not going to elaborate on spelling just yet however, I am going to say remember this little gimmick-ish rhyme; it really does help! "I before E except after C
I will continue to add things to this thread as I go along, feel free to post anything you believe I should add
