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One of many things that bug me is the misuse of the "possessive pronoun"
YOUR.
As in: "Your a cool guy" or "Your an important person".
Do they not teach english in school anyomore?
Do people know what a contraction is?
It should say: "You're a cool guy" .....short form of "You are a cool guy". "Your" is only used to show ownership: "Is that your car?"
I actually saw a billboard ad with the "your" used the wrong way!! A BILLBOARD!! This means that either someone didn't catch it or they don't know any better! If it's the latter, that's scary! Because more than likely, that is a college educated person!
Where are we going???
Technically, "you're vs your" is not a grammar problem. It's a spelling problem. No one who writes "Your a cool guy" thinks that "My a cool guy, His a cool guy, etc." They know the correct grammar, they're just misspelling it.
My biggest grammar pet peeve is the excessive use of ''ain't'', and when it is used as an alternative for all contractions and as a contraction to support another negative. Examples: I ain't got no car,- Double negative; We ain't stupid.- incorrect
Without the contraction:
I am not got no car.
We am not stupid.
You can see how both sentences sound flat out wrong.
How so? I am not actually trying to correct anyone's grammar cause I don't care enough, but I'm just pointing out the various ways in which a prescriptivist could try to "one-up" someone. I only responded to your post in the way I did to illustrate a point. Honestly, though, I couldn't care less where you put the period in relation to the quotation mark.
In one post, you say grammar does make their "cognitive ability" and then you say well for me, I want people to think I'm intelligent, when I make my post?
In one post, you say grammar does make their "cognitive ability" and then you say well for me, I want people to think I'm intelligent, when I make my post?
It doesn't make up their cognitive ability, but people do make that erroneous assumption, and I play into that erroneous assumption so that I can get them to trust my opinions. Yes, it's true I am playing the game I hate but I feel like the only way to beat it is to play it better than everyone else. At least I realize it's all a game, though.
It's not that difficult to get over either. I admit, seeing people spell "ridiculous" with an "e" ("rediculous") and so on does bother me a bit, but then I realize how small it is in the grand scheme of things, and realize it doesn't matter. Why can't others see this too? We have bigger fish to fry than whether "ridiculous" is spelled with one or two I's.
Didn't you recently say that you are still a student? If you aren't, you haven't been out of college long and it is easy to see since you are thinking that language usage isn't important.
Can you not see that someone who isn't intelligent enough or educated enough in proper usage tends to think that careless use of our language is not at all important. What if a person who is not EFL reads some of the things you say are not important and fails to interpret the reading because he has learned English and how to use it? Yes, you sound like what our schools are putting out these days.
It doesn't make up their cognitive ability, but people do make that erroneous assumption, and I play into that erroneous assumption so that I can get them to trust my opinions. Yes, it's true I am playing the game I hate but I feel like the only way to beat it is to play it better than everyone else. At least I realize it's all a game, though.
The only time I will ever say something about someones grammar, is when they screw up just like Ghost did, AFTER they corrected someone....
Cause trust me, I have posted on here a few times while enjoying some adult refreshments, and the next day I'm like I really posted that..........
I think spelling and grammar errors are a bad reflection on our educational system. It is more a problem of never having been taught proper usage than not caring about it.
Knowledge of standard usage is absolutely essential for anyone who wants to advance in a career in which words are important.
If your job does not depend on knowledge of proper usage, lack of that knowledge just makes you appear uneducated. That is ignorance, not stupidity.
If our education system is not teaching everyone proper usage (I believe the theory a few years ago was to have students just commit ideas to paper, that spelling and grammar do not count.), then that is sad news indeed. My parents graduated from high school in the 1940s, in a system that only eleven grades, but they spoke and wrote grammatical English. It was expected of them to learn it.
Some of us are fortunate because we have heard proper usage since we were infants. That makes it easier, because improper usage just sounds wrong.
Those whose parents do not use proper grammar have a more difficult time, as do those learning English as non-native speakers of it. I am not sure whether television helps or hinders learning language. I suspect it depends on what you watch.
Spelling has to be taught, and if you do not have a learning disability like dyslexia, application of effort will do the trick. It is boring, rote memory work, but it must be done.
On the internet, I think we need to cut people some slack. No one wants to proofread his posts to remove every tiny typo if the content of the post does not really need it. Since I am more than a little compulsive, I try to find my own errors. I do not fault those who do not. Maybe they are really just a little lazy, and their formal writing is better. I have seen posts so garbled that they are unintelligible, however. That makes me cringe. Colloquial usage is fine with me.
My favorite error is the use of their in the predicate of a sentence when the subject is singular. For some reason, it makes me want to scream, "One person cannot be their!" (Is that the right way to do it?) Using their this way is apparently allowed in journalism now. "No one wants to proofread his posts." becomes "No one wants to proofread their posts." That does not make me acccept it, but it does show how, as nimchimpsky says, language evolves. I think it is an effort to be politically correct and not use he and his when the person being written about may be either male or female.
For some reason, a common error here on CD is to use then when the writer means than. That is so common that I wonder if it is being taught in school today.
Maybe the language arts educators here can enlighten me on the status of the curriculum these days.
I'm a Southerner. I say ya'll when I am speaking. It is plural, by the way. You do not use it to refer to one person. I do not usually use it when I am writing. But if someone else wants to do so, that is fine with me.
One of many things that bug me is the misuse of the "possessive pronoun"
YOUR.
As in: "Your a cool guy" or "Your an important person".
Do they not teach english in school anyomore?
Do people know what a contraction is?
It should say: "You're a cool guy" .....short form of "You are a cool guy". "Your" is only used to show ownership: "Is that your car?"
I actually saw a billboard ad with the "your" used the wrong way!! A BILLBOARD!! This means that either someone didn't catch it or they don't know any better! If it's the latter, that's scary! Because more than likely, that is a college educated person!
Where are we going???
I think that is a common type-o.
People write fast and forget to self-check their work before "posting".
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Why has our language become so dumb-downed? 
A BILLBOARD!! This means that either someone didn't catch it or they don't know any better! If it's the latter, that's scary! Because more than likely, that is a college educated person! 
I do not usually use it when I am writing. But if someone else wants to do so, that is fine with me.
