If you've ever come to the sad realization that to some extent spelling doesn't really matter, you may have wondered whether more important rules for communication exist.
Let me make it easy for you. It's the grammar.
Watch. Hvae you hraed of taht rseaecrh sduty at Cmagbirde Uveinitsry ponrvig olny the frsit and ltetres of a wrod mtater?
Psychologically, we're wired to want to read as fast as possible, and that means skipping spelling mistakes. If a brain can get away with skimming over "comitted" it will.
But when you're cruising along and witness "there" used incorrectly, you'll find you stop for a second, going back to make sure you read it right.
There is an adverb and a pronoun, meaning it has lots of uses. But none of them are contractions for "they are" or their, which is used solely to denote a group's ownership of something.
When it comes to "it is" the word it's is used only for the contraction. Its, on the other hand, is a pronoun with a secret. A penguin having an affair leaves a chick fatherless. Adding an apostrophe robs the family of ownership.
And haven't they been through enough? Its indicates ownership by a pronoun, and the pronoun can be owning anything: a secret, another noun, and so on.
Those two, the theres and the itses, will get you through adult life without looking like a Generation personal. Past college, a potential employer (for example) might forgive spelling develop as "develope" but the grammar will always come back to bite.
So here's a couple of other suggestions you might find helpful.
There's a big difference between losing the penguins ("where did they all go? Whoops, I lost them!") and loosing the penguins. Loose is synonymous with unleash.
"If I was" (a thing) is grammatically accepted, but not really semantically correct. "If I were" is a better way to say whatever it is you think you could be. "If I was late" or "if I was the one" both sound right, but were in the place of was makes it right.
If penguins are "taken aback" by something, it means they're startled and possibly a little indignant. If they're "taken back" it sounds like you returned them to where you got them.
The word "okay" is both accepted the way it is (especially in speech) and correct written "OK."
Not so bad, right? With those four, you've graduated from the personals to bathroom graffiti.
If you want to uphold your street cred while you write sitting down, the following will get you the respect you deserve.
Pronouns can be confusing. I don't mean you should have any trouble putting them together, because if you're reading this you probably shouldn't. Consider, though, "he gave his noun back to him."
Which penguin gave whose noun back to whom? The confusing part, for the potential employer, is deciding how the writer could have neglected to make it clear.
Apostrophes, in general, are commonly misused. Even when an acronym (like CD) is plural, no apostrophe is necessary. In fact, it's only necessary when the subject of the sentence possesses something (or in a contraction, like it's). CD's would only occur if a CD owned a thing.
You're moving up in the world. It's finally time to send a letter to the editor at The Buffalo News.
For such a prestigious undertaking, consider only one final thing.
See all those italics, up there? How font formatting is lavished over whole paragraphs like constructive criticism on Bulls basketball?
Don't do it. If you want to communicate well and do it professionally, there are things more important than spelling. The grammar will come back to bite, but the italics are the penguin's curse.
Go, now. Take all you've learned and teach those bastards who drunkenly abuse the personals a lesson. Its the right thing to do.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
