I bet your confused now, arent you? Lets face it: theres something wrong hear. Your already wondering how many of these errors their are. You our, arent you?

Were not used to seeing this sort of thing in print though. You could cheat. You could cut and paste this into Word and see where the little wiggly blue and red lines pop up and then hit the auto-correct. But thatd be cheating. As Im sweating over typing this you can sweat a little less over reading it. We see these sort’s of error’s all the time.

Maybe thats what it is. We see it all the time in are students work. Sometime’s I bet your reading theyre work and you notice an error and you do a double-take. Theyve written something that look’s wrong, but can you be sure. Your tempted. The contents good. There are no mark’s for spelling, punctuation and grammar…so why bother to correct it?  And there error is something youve never been holy confident with either. What if, in making a correction, youre about to get it wrong?

Lets be honest here…how often are you unsure youre amending it correctly? It happen’s to us all. What if were correcting whats already right? We all make mistake’s…. and we have to own up to the fact that, as a college, we actually make more error’s in our use of apostrophe’s and spelling of homophone’s than we should….

…but we cant afford to….

…because we are the role models, not just in the College but in the wider community too. If weir…. sorry we’re… going to put theory into practice, set an example, walk the talk, over-use a cliché…then, in the words of Kylie, we’ve ‘got to be, got to be certain’.

Which is of course what this blog is all about. Allow me to present cures for the two common writing ailments….

 

1. Homophoneophobia.

A tricky condition, being a fear of words that sound the same, but which have different meanings and are therefore probably spelled differently too. If you’ll allow me:

Q: How do you soothe an English teacher?

A: Just say ‘There, their, they’re’.

(© ‘Private Eye’).

 

It comes down to being sure of the meaning or the sense of the sentence…..

Are/our                                                Are we confident in our homophones?

Though/ through/thought               Though I had thought it through, I still got mixed up!

They’re /their/there                           They’re delicious. Their flavour is amazing. There’s none left!

Here/hear                                            Here is the answer. Hear me loud and clear?

Now/ know /no                                   Now you know there’ll be no mistakes.

Where/we’re/wear/were                    This is where we’re going wrong. / We wear uniform. / We were overjoyed.

2.             SAS (Slippery Apostrophe Syndrome)

1. Apostrophe of omission. Used to show where a letter has been omitted:

               

I’m (I am)                                              I’ve (I have)                                          we’ve (we have)   

can’t (cannot)                                     doesn’t ( does not)                             won’t  ( will not)

should’ve  (should have)                 they’re (they are)

who’s (who is)                                     it’s (it is)

 

2. Apostrophe of possession. Used to show that something is owned by someone/thing else.

You need to be clear on whether owner is singular or plural in positioning the apostrophe…

 

• The girl’s chocolate.  (one –singular- girl, one- singular - chocolate.)

 

• The girls’ chocolate.  (many -plural- girls,   one-singular- chocolate.) 

 

• The girls’ chocolates. (many -plural- girls, many-plural -chocolates.)

 

• Tim’s chocolate. (One Tim, one chocolate. Hands off!)

 

• Jess’s Aero. (Jess +  ’s to show she’s not sharing either.)  BUT Jess’ Aero is also correct!

 

• The teachers’ chocolate. (Many teachers, one shared chocolate bar.  Small pieces. They’re on diets.)

 

• The teachers’ chocolates. (Many teachers, one bar each. Bingeing!)

 

Why does this matter? Because, if we make errors like this, we demean ourselves and our role.

And finally, because I believe in circular structures…. The correct version.

I bet you’re confused now, aren’t you? Let’s face it: There’s something wrong here. You’re already wondering how many of these errors there are. You are, aren’t you?

We’re not used to seeing this sort of thing in print though. You could cheat. You could cut and paste this into Word and see where the little wiggly blue and red lines pop up and then hit the auto-correct. But that’d be cheating. As I’m sweating over typing this you can sweat a little less over reading it. We see these sorts of errors all the time.

Maybe that’s what it is. We see it all the time in our students’ work. Sometimes I bet you’re reading their work and you notice an error and you do a double-take. They’ve written something that looks wrong, but can you be sure? You’re tempted. The content’s good. There are no marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar…so why bother to correct it?  And their error is something you’ve never been wholly confident with either. What if, in making a correction, you’re about to get it wrong?

Let’s be honest here…how often are you unsure you’re amending it correctly? It happens to us all. What if we’re correcting what’s already right? We all make mistakes…. and we have to own up to the fact that, as a college, we actually make more errors in our use of apostrophes and spelling of homophones than we should….

…but we can’t afford to….

…because we are the role models, not just in the College but in the wider community too. If weir…. sorry we’re… going to put theory into practice, set an example, walk the talk, over-use a cliché…then, in the words of Kylie, we’ve ‘got to be, got to be certain’.

Happy New Year!