When you read the words “the mistake you will remember for the rest of your days,” what do you think of? Probably something embarrassing, like wearing your shirt inside-out all day or accidentally flirting with the new gym teacher in your senior year of high school because you didn’t realize he was a teacher (those may or may not be statements of experience… *cough* In my defense, he looked younger than some of the other seniors). Present-day, in the Age of Information, however, many of those unforgettable blunders can be the result of improper grammar or spelling, or using a homonym, on an internet post: the world wide web is generally unforgiving when it comes to even the smallest of errors.
Most of us know the common ones: to/too/two, there/their/they’re, then/than, your/you’re, etc. People have made hilarious mistakes, terrible mistakes, and even devoted YouTube series to others’ English errors. Today, though, I want to take you through five of the ones I’ve seen surprisingly often that fall outside of the typical catalog of bungles—things that, if I could, I would eliminate from the internet entirely. Fellow grammar advocates, try not to cringe too hard while reading this list.
5. “Bestfriend”
Bonus "your" and an unnecessary ellipsis! This one really has the whole package! Get it? Because--no? Okay, moving on...
Okay, everyone: I appreciate all the posts out there about you showing your love for your best friends. I love that you’re putting so much more love out into the world. In English, however, “best friend” is two words. I’m actually putting this one at the start of my list—where a least-hated item might otherwise appear—because in doing some research, I realized that there might be a really cool origin behind this one. For those who didn’t have to learn another language in school, there are a whole bunch of different rules to most of the other languages out there. One of these wonderful things is that sometimes, words that might otherwise be separate get smooshed together, like “mija” in Spanish. This is shortened from “mi hija,” which means “my daughter.” The same kind of thing happens in other languages, so the whole “bestfriend” phenomenon could actually be a result of people learning English as a second language (and their friends not wanting to correct them after offering a compliment such as “you’re my bestfriend”—or just being lazy and not using a space). That is very awesome, and I have so much respect for those people for taking on a second language—especially one as challenging as English! But for us native English-speakers, let’s try to remember that “best friend” is two words, okay?
4. “Specie”
“Specie” is actually a word—it has a definition and everything. But the way most people use it is as the singular of the word “species,” and that is absolutely not what its definition is. The singular of “species” is “species,” like “sheep” or “fish.” This actually might not bug me so much if I hadn’t had a biology teacher—someone who supposedly went through all kinds of college to get her degree to teach kids about species, among other things—who used it this way all through my sophomore year of high school. Now, whenever I hear someone say “specie” when they mean “species,” it’s like nails on a chalkboard. Please don’t do this.
I’m begging you.
3. “Definitely” vs. “Defiantly”
This was actually published. Seriously. I think someone needs a new editor...
I’m pretty sure this one is from people attempting to sound out the word “definitely” and then being attacked by autocorrect, though how they figure there’s an “a” in it anywhere has always been kind of confusing to me: if I sound out the word "definitely," it’s “def-fin-it-lee,” and that’s not too different from how it’s actually spelled. This bugs me for two reasons: first, because of how easy it seems to me to spell “definitely,” and second, because of how unprofessional the typist appears when they’ve mistakenly used “defiantly.” However, it can produce some pretty hilarious results if read without compensating for the typo and subsequent autocorrect:
You get my point. No wonder millennials are seen as so rebellious!
2. Excessive Use of Apostrophes
I’ll admit that when you start getting into plural possession, it can get a little tricky, but not every word that ends in an “s” needs an apostrophe. In fact, most words that end with the letter “s” don’t need apostrophes because they’re not possessive, they’re just plural, and apostrophes don’t make words plural: more often than not, the letter “s” does (and sometimes changing around the end of the word a little, e.g., formality to formalities, but it still ends in an "s," so I'm sticking to my story).
So when you ju’st put in an apo’strophe before every “s,” it make’s your writing look really weird and al’so annoy’s people. Plea’se don’t do it!
1. Typing in Capitals, Symbols, and Numbers
This is barely even legible, especially when it gets as bad as this:
Why do this? Writing in all capitals I could maybe understand, if one was absolutely overflowing with emotion (or extremely overtired at 4:00 in the morning... not that that's happened to me or anything), but don’t the symbols and numbers just take extra effort? With the amount of misspelling and letter substitutions going on in these kinds of comments, I’m almost convinced they could be fairly easily turned into ciphers to send secret messages. Do the people typing these comments actually expect anyone to read them? Are they a shield against people attempting to correct others' grammar on the internet?
I really don't understand it, guys.
(Dis)honorable Mention: “Tired” vs. “Tiered”
I couldn't even find a good image for this one unless I got too personal with more than one of my friends. I'm just going to do a demonstration here, okay? When you're out of energy, you're T-I-R-E-D tired, which looks like this:
If you need help remembering it, think about it this way: by college, most students can claim being "tired" as a permanent talent or personality trait, like being witty or kind. It's actually how I describe myself in general conversation.
If you've got multiple layers, often ones that taper in size as they go up, you're T-I-E-R-E-D tiered. You're also probably a cake.
Or a dress. But cakes are probably my favorite tiered item, so let's go with that.
Grammar and the Internet
Okay, so I'm not stupid and I don't live under a rock. I know that the internet kind of has its own unofficial set of rules for typing, communicating, etc. This does not mean, however, that we can just throw everything else away, because we still communicate in ways that are not digital (as much as some of us may dislike that), and even when we do communicate digitally, sometimes we have to be professional about it. I'm fairly green when it comes to the job market, but I can't imagine any boss accepting a cover letter, resume, or even a casual email written in all caps, symbols, and numbers. Typos are amazing and result in boundless hilarity, but not knowing the difference between "tired" and "tiered?" I'm tired of it! Or that "definitely" isn't spelled with an "a," thus constantly becoming the victim of your well-meaning autocorrect? Definitely a recipe for trouble.
