MAD WRITING SKILLS: Grammar Mad in Crafts

I am pretty much a grammar nazi. I am totally one of those annoying people who will correct you publically if you make a grammatical error when you are having a conversation with me. It’s not my most charming attribute.

Although I get a debilitating twitch above my left eye if I see grammatical errors on a blog I am reading, I understand that not everyone has my same personal neuroses and can deal with the occasional misspelling or unnecessary comma.

That being said, there are some mistakes you absolutely CANNOT make if you want your readers to take you seriously. I call these mistakes THE UNFORGIVABLES.

Poor grammar is never ”FINE BY ME!”

1. Get the your/you’re, their/there/they’re, and its/it’s differences down. No excuses.

2. Irregardless is not a word and may ONLY be used in an OBVIOUSLY ironic way.

3. Learn the difference between possessive and plural. If a blogger writes the word “scissor’s,” I want to use my red pen all over my laptop screen. And then stab my eyes out with the red pen.

If you are willing to dive into the murky waters of English grammar, read on. Certain mistakes tend to crop up frequently and should stay on your radar.

SUBJECT/VERB AGREEMENT

For the most part, educated writers don’t have problems matching up singular subjects with singular verbs and plural subjects with plural verbs.

The dog has fleas.

The fleas have disease.

The tricky part is when you must deal with one of those pesky indefinite pronouns. Is it “some are” or “some is”? The answer, as it so often is in the English language, is: it depends.

-Some/All/None: Whether a sentence using one of these pronouns as a subject is plural or singular depends on the some or all in question.

           Some of the water is still in the bathtub.

           All of the towels are wet.

           None of the children are clean.

-Anyone/Everyone/Someone/No one/Nobody: Memorize this list. These subjects always take a singular verb.

            Anyone who thinks English makes sense should have his head examined.

            Nobody is perfect all the time.

-Each/Neither/Either: Again, these words are always singular, even if your Spidey Sense is telling you differently.

            Each girl is choosing an outfit for the dance.

            Either dress would be lovely.

            Neither of their dates is going to notice what they are wearing.

MISSPELLINGS (OR IS IT MISPELLINGS?)

This list of 50 common spelling buggers was compiled HERE. Have someone read the words to you and have a little spelling test to see how you do!

THAN VS. THEN

I am not sure if this counts as a spelling error, a definition misconception, or a good old-fashioned brain fart, but bloggers seem to confuse “then” with “than” frequently.

Maybe it’s because “than” is one of those words that when you look at it for too long ends up looking like a made-up word. Than. Than. Thaaaaaaaaaaan.

Here’s how to tell the difference. Use the word “then” when you are writing about something that happened after or because of something else. If you are comparing two things, use “than.”

Time: I re-read the seventh Harry Potter book, then I went to see the new movie.

Comparison: I think the book was better than the movie.

COMMON COMMA ERRORS

Say that three times fast. A problem with comma errors is tough to overcome because there are so many rules to remember and so very many ways to mess them up. Here are a few of the most frequent comma errors people make and ways to avoid them.

-Between compound subjects or verb

This common error is one of those “good intentions” errors. The writer remembers that commas are needed to separate items in a list, so he mistakenly adds them when he creates a compound subject or compound verb.

Two examples of commas used INCORRECTLY:

The brown wall, and the gray wall do not look good next to each other.

My glue gun got too hot, and burned my fingers.

-Between adjectives

In grammatically correct writing, commas are only used between adjectives if the modifiers are of equal importance. The easy way to check to see if your adjectives are equal (and if a comma is needed) is by replacing the comma with the word “and.”

“The soft, warm afghan” becomes “the soft and warm afghan” = COMMA IS CORRECT

“The delicious, Christmas dinner” becomes “the delicious and Christmas dinner” = NO COMMA

Another way to check your adjectives for equality is to re-order the words. If the sentence still makes sense, the modifiers are equal and the comma is needed.

“The warm, soft afghan”

“The Christmas, delicious dinner”

-The Oxford Comma

Technically, this isn’t an error in the true sense of the word. It’s more of a “Common Comma Dispute,” but Vampire Weekend wrote a song about it, so I will include it.

Grammar sticklers like to argue over the comma before the words “and,” “but,” and “or” in a series of items. (If you notice, I just wrote a series of items there, and I did include a comma before the last item, which tells my opinion.) Some grammarians say that you do not need the final comma because the joining word (and, but, or) takes the place of a comma. Others say that the final comma IS needed to indicate a pause in reading.

“bat, ball, and glove”

“bat, ball and glove”

Americans tend to omit the last comma; the English leave it in. Neither way is technically wrong.

PRACTICAL TIPS FOR PROOFREADING YOUR POSTS

1. If you can’t spell it, Google it. If you have a brain fart and can’t remember if it is spelled “perseverence” or “perseverance,” open up a new tab and type the word into Google. The right spelling will likely pop right up. I do this ALL the time.

2. Read your post backwards. Your brain is much more likely to skip over misspellings when you are reading the words in context. Reading backwards eliminates the context.

3. Read your post out loud. Even if you are just reading to yourself, you are more likely to notice a missing word or a sentence that doesn’t make sense if you engage your eyes AND ears.

4. If you can’t figure out how to write it correctly, write it differently. If you can’t seem to end that sentence without dangling a preposition, junk it and start over. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

5. Write, walk away, then proofread. If you proofread immediately after writing a post, your brain is still engaged in what you have written and will be more likely to miss mistakes. Save your writing, go and do a load of laundry, then come back later to proofread.

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