Stop butchering the Queens English!

I know I probably have a lot of Republicans reading my blog, but come on, it sounds awesome when you say "The Queens English" in a posh sort of voice!

ANYWAY, I'm here to have a whinge about the Internet. More specifically, peoples spelling and grammar. Now, I'm not talking about the odd typo, because everyone has those. No, I'm talking about repeated abuse of the English language, in fact, any language that gets bastardized because people are lazy.

How hard is it to use a spell checker (Google Chrome automatically checks your spelling for you. How nifty) or check out Dictionary.com? Not only do you get the correct spelling of the word you were looking for, you might even find a better word to use. Many misunderstandings between people on social media and the Internet more than likely comes from poor use of language, including punctuation and grammar. Everyone says you can't judge tone from text, well I call bullshit on that. Good sentence structure, including careful punctuation and word choice can easily convey tone. We even have emojis nowadays to make sure that the tone gets across. Even sarcasm can be written without having to explicitly state you're being sarcastic.

The big thing for me though is choice of words. Particularly if the word in question is a homophone (a word that is spelt differently and has a different meaning to another word, but sounds the same). My biggest pet hates are people who mix up "wrapped" and "rapt" and "check" and "cheque". Don't get me started on those who mix up "your" and "you're" as well as "there", "they're" and "their". We also won't get into those who say "Here, here!" Instead of "Hear, hear!"

For the record:

Wrapped: Is something that has been covered, for example a wrapped present.
Rapt: Comes from "enrapture", which is another way of saying "absolutely, 100% overjoyed."
Check: Means to look over or verify. Can also mean to stop or halt something.
Cheque: A piece of paper that someone gives you in lieu of actual money.

If I have to go into "there, their, they're" and "your, you're", then I give up and suggest you go back to year one and start school again.

Using proper language not only is respectful to the language, it's showing respect to yourself and to the person you're communicating with.