Rant: English 101
August 11th, 2008 @ 3:42am | Permalink |
It’s no secret that I get Google Alerts to help me keep up with the latest and greatest (and sometimes the ridiculous and stupid) news on My Chemical Romance for Mikey Way Online. However, in these alerts, I also tend to get blog posts and fan fictions. So here’s my rant…
I realize a lot of these kids are young. I really do. However, a lack of the basics of the English language is just plain stupid. Now, if English is a second language, it’s forgivable because I know that’s difficult and Engish isn’t exactly the easiest one to learn.
The people I’m talking about are native speakers of the English language and still don’t realize that it’s important to be correct when writing out homophones. The differences between “they’re”, “their”, and “there” are significant. It’s also perfectly okay to use periods, commas, and (0MG!!1!) paragraphs.
On the topic of punctuation and formatting, there really is a structure to quotes and dialogue. When a person is quoted, put the part being quoted between (no, really!) quotes! No, not single quotes (apostrophes) but double quotes. If the quote ends with a period and the writing continues, replace the period with a comma inside the ending double quote and continue with the “said Frank” or whatever, as such: “I am only allowed one can of coke per day,” said Frank. The punctuation for the quote goes inside the ending quote. No, really. Example: “Why am I allowed only one can of coke per day?” asked Frank. The worst one is when someone else starts speaking and isn’t put on the next line. It’s confusing because it gives the reader the impression that the first person is still speaking.
It’s also fairly sad to see kids who have no concept of the basics of sentence structure. In an alert (sorry if whoever posted this is reading my blog), there was this subject: ” Are you happy for Gerard Way for getting engaged?” There’s two things wrong with this. The first is that it doesn’t matter what we think about Gerard Way’s engagement (however brief), but that’s a different entry entirely. The second is “for”. There’s two of them and neither of them belong in that question. It should be, “Are you happy that Gerard Way is getting engaged?” even though that’s a bit awkward with the “getting” because, if we’re aware he’s “getting engaged”, he’s probably already engaged.
My last issue is that of spelling. Please, for the love of the English language and the hearts of people who understand this concept, use spellcheck. Yes, it’s not perfect, but it’s a lot better than what a lot of people publish. It’s something. Beyond that, spellcheck isn’t perfect. It doesn’t catch said homophones. Hell, it doesn’t catch a lot of things because, according to spellcheck, it’s spelled correctly (and it might be), however it’s probably used incorrectly nonetheless. Basically, if I’m struggling to read within a few sentences, I quit reading. Period.
I’m not perfect and I don’t try to be, but I at least put in the effort. It’s really not all that difficult.