In Which I Decry the Rampant Use of Grammatical Errors in Everyday Life
So as I’m sure we’ve all seen, around this time of year is graduation season. I’ve already attended my college’s graduation ceremony so I could see off some of my good friends as they embark into the world of higher education and gainful employment.
And let’s not forget high school. It’s easy to overlook high school graduations once you’ve crossed that stage yourself…but coming from a huge extended family, just about every year I get invited to someone’s college or high school graduation.
A cousin of mine who for her protection will remain nameless sent my parents and I her graduation party invitation, which she printed herself. Normally I’m all for self-made invites because hey, why buy when you can do it yourself? Her card however, included the huge bold headline
YOUR INVITED!
YOUR Invited.
Your.
Really?
Here’s a tip for you: No one will take you seriously if you mistake ‘you’re’ and ‘your’. If you can’t grasp the difference between them, just give up now, because you fail. At life.
I know what you’re thinking (you’re!). Chill out, woman. It’s just a simple grammar mistake. And you’d be right. It is just a simple mistake. But I’m a little bit of a snob about things like that, mostly because I’m easily irritated and have little patience for stupid people. Seriously? How hard is it to understand the difference between “You’re invited to my graduation” and “Your dog shit on the carpet today”?
I find it fascinating how little details like this manage to escape people’s attention. It seems like such an easy concept to grasp (so easy, in fact, that we are generally taught this piece of information by around age 7) and yet everywhere you look today you see things like “Your invited” and “There party was awesome!”
A lot of it, admittedly, has to do with laziness and not necessarily direct stupidity, and I can almost get behind the argument for the Internet being an informal form of communication and therefore not as rigidly subject to the rules of formal written communication…. Especially because of my tendency to rant in run-on sentences. Almost. I mean I’m not gonna lie and say that my Facebook chat conversations carry the same caliber of writing as an essay I’d turn in for a grade… But that doesn’t mean I just purposely misspell things. I think that’s stupid.
To wrap this up… Be smart. Listen to your tenth grade English teacher. Pay attention to details, because people will judge you. Including me.
—-xoxo, M
