By Abby Rathbun
Grammar is right up there with teeth-pulling for most people, including me. However, as college students and hopeful graduates, we are expected to have a certain degree of knowledge of the English language. How many of us have sat in a foreign language class, only to learn that English has all the same parts of speech, and most of the same rules as that foreign language?
When speaking, we get a bit of leeway with the English language. But that is still no excuse to butcher the language. I have a personal pet peeve: split infinitives. An infinitive is a verb with to, e.g. to speak, to draw, to type. Every time I hear “to never meet” or “to always love,” I think of my eighth-grade English teacher. She would chastise and scold our class relentlessly on this subject. This is a minor rule, but it will make quite a difference when writing a cover letter for that post-graduation résumé.
We have all gotten that writing assignment for a 10-page paper and have absolutely nothing to say about the topic. We repeatedly repeat redundant sentences in order to say something redundant over again, to add length to a repetitive paper. Reading your ramblings is just about as unpleasant as listening to your ramblings. Your writing should be concise. If you have nothing to say, then say nothing.
“Avoid clichés like the plague,” said the late witty grammarian and columnist William Safire.
I wholeheartedly agree. If you absolutely feel the need to compare two notions, please come up with your own comparison, not one that someone has already created and has been overused for years. If you are writing a cover letter to impress a future employer, using a cliché will only show how incompetent you are at being creative or original. Clichés are tired and exhausted phrases; please, only use them when you yourself are tired and exhausted.
Perhaps the most annoying error to me is adding s to the end of store names. It is not Krogers, Meijers, Targets or Wal-marts. It’s singular. It certainly is not possessive. Only if you actually see the letter s at the end of store sign should you pronounce the s. I know some words like caramel are said with a silent letter, especially if you’re from the Midwest, but I’ve never heard of pronouncing a letter that wasn’t there, unless you’re French.
Please, please make sure you use the correct form of any of the following words: their, there, they’re, here, hear, its, it’s, you’re or your. I don’t give a darn which you use in your texts, unless it’s a text to me. Their is a possessive pronoun, there is a demonstrative pronoun and they’re is simply a contraction between they and are. None of them can be used interchangeably. Use the right one. Even more annoying than that, is using the wrong its. Its is a possessive pronoun; it’s is a contraction between it and is. It doesn’t make a difference until you use the wrong one and it entirely changes that prenuptial you signed with that rich loser. Your is possessive; you’re is a contraction. I don’t give a hoot if your is shorter than you’re. You’re jerks is way different from your jerks. Hopefully, you don’t own any jerks.
Grammar is not going to kill you if you use it improperly. I may, but it won’t. Grammar is meant to make English a tad less confusing and provide some sort of easily understood communication. For Pete’s sake, avoid these errors in your paper. Maybe it will even get you a job.
