About "Watch Your Language!"

Hello and thank you for visiting my blog.  I created Watch Your Language! in response to the many spelling and grammar errors I have witnessed on not just social networking posts, but also on actual web sites and even in published books.  Having seen many of the same mistakes over and over, I felt it was time to pitch in my two cents on the subject and to create a site of my own to address the various errors.

With the advent of instant messaging (IM) and texting - and Twitter, with its 140-character limit - it's small wonder that people have forgotten how to spell properly.  It simply takes too much time (and too many keystrokes) to spell out every single word in a chat or text message; as a consequence, we use such non-words as "ur" for you're or your.  Then, when it comes time to post a real message that will be seen and read by the world at large, or to compose an email to a friend or business associate, we have difficulty remembering which spelling of the word is correct for the context.  Along the way, we've also made up words, like "alot," which simply do not exist.  With the exception of this example, and in most cases, spellcheck cannot be relied upon to catch mistakes.  If a word is spelled properly but used incorrectly, spellcheck won't help a bit.  The  discernment belongs to the writer.  Spellcheck should only be used as a backup, to point out typos.

I've also witnessed apostrophes added where they don't belong - as in a webpage that is proudly titled "Photo's" - or eliminated where they do belong.  In addition, I've seen incorrect usage of commas, especially in places where a semicolon (;) should have been.

Although I don't have a degree in English, I've always loved to write, and over the years I've learned many of the rules of the road.  This blog will be a work in progress, with the initial posts on the most common spelling/grammar errors, and new posts forthcoming whenever I come across anything that I hadn't addressed previously.

I hope this blog is interesting and informative, especially for other bloggers and social network members.  In the meantime, here's a page on JumboJoke.com that really illustrates the situation!

Thanks for stopping by.

Laura P.