Apostrophes –
In my opinion, this is the most important thing to discuss first, mainly because it is an extremely common error and a lot of people don’t know where to put them and what they’re used for and hence put them in the wrong places and/or don’t put them where they’re needed. The general rule of thumb when it comes to apostrophes is that they are not used for plurals. Take a look at the below photo. In these cringe-worthy examples, the apostrophe is incorrect. Both ‘Sundays’ and ‘Apples’ are just plural words e.g. more than one Sunday and more than one apple.
In my opinion, this is the most important thing to discuss first, mainly because it is an extremely common error and a lot of people don’t know where to put them and what they’re used for and hence put them in the wrong places and/or don’t put them where they’re needed. The general rule of thumb when it comes to apostrophes is that they are not used for plurals. Take a look at the below photo. In these cringe-worthy examples, the apostrophe is incorrect. Both ‘Sundays’ and ‘Apples’ are just plural words e.g. more than one Sunday and more than one apple.
You'll very often find that when apostrophes are used for
plurals, they are not used consistently and only used on some of the plurals
and not all.... The first photo below is a perfect example of
this. Another regular incorrectness is apostrophes being used in acronyms
to make them plural. One example is BBQ’s. If plural, this should simply be
written as ‘BBQs’. The only time you would need the apostrophe is if you were
making the BBQ into a possessive e.g. ‘here are some of the BBQ’s features’
(the features belonging to the BBQ). JB Hi-Fi are regular abusers of this sort
of erroneous apostrophe, often using it on ‘CDs’ and ‘DVDs.’ Similar to this,
it is also very commonly written in dates e.g. ‘I was born in the 1970’s’. This
should only be written as ‘70s’. The only time where you would include the
apostrophe is when it is possessive e.g. a 70’s disco (a disco belonging to the
70s.)
We will discuss plurals in more detail in the next section Plurals vs Possessive.
We will discuss plurals in more detail in the next section Plurals vs Possessive.
Apostrophes are used for a few things:
- For contractions e.g. what we've spoken about above - You’re, They’re, Shouldn't and It’s. We will see more examples later...
- To denote possession e.g. above where we saw ‘The dog’s paw’ – the paw which belongs to the dog. We will discuss possession more in the next section Plurals vs Possessive.
- When we want to omit the word ‘is’ e.g. ‘Your singing’s atrocious’. In this example, we are saying ‘Your singing is atrocious’. ‘The party’s at his place’ – ‘The party is at his place’. ‘No one’s home’ – ‘No one is home’. If we didn't include the apostrophe in these examples, we would not be making much sense. ‘Singings atrocious’, ‘partys at his place’ and ‘no ones home’. None of these words are plurals (especially since the plural of ‘party’ is ‘parties’). Of course, using an apostrophe in this way is often colloquial as you would usually write it in full in formal writing e.g. write ‘it is’ instead of ‘it’s’ and ‘singing is’ instead of ‘singing’s’.
The next example may not be the best one as it’s a business name and not necessarily incorrect as such, but nevertheless, it still bugs me and I can’t help but cringe every time I see it. You may have seen these short infomercials during ad breaks. I think they've gone with ‘whats new’ instead of ‘What’s New’ as don’t forget website URLs cannot use apostrophes in them and also, they probably wanted something a little different and more of a talking point. I personally hate it but then again, that’s purely my opinion.
While we’re on the topic of business names, I also don’t like this one. What the heck is a bed bath anyway? Again,
purely my opinion but surely ‘Bed, Bath N’ Table’ would have been just as
good...
Now we will take a look at the difference between plurals and possessives....
Now we will take a look at the difference between plurals and possessives....
Plurals vs Possessive –
Plural words end in s. e.g. one boy, two boys. One cow, two cows. Be careful though as there are exceptions e.g. sheep and fish. You don’t say sheeps or fishes. While I see nothing wrong with it, it unfortunately is not right and the plural is the same word as the singular. Anyway, moving on to possessives. For singular words, the apostrophe goes before the s. e.g. The boy’s room (the room belonging to the boy); the dog’s spots (the spots belonging to the dog); people’s opinions (the opinions of the people); this season’s apples (the apples of the season); Phil's calculator; and Australia’s number 1 holiday resort. Three common incorrect examples are ‘Todays specials’, ‘Seasons Greetings’ and ‘New Years Eve’. When we combine a plural with possession, the apostrophe goes after the s. e.g. The boys’ room (the room belonging to the boys); the kittens’ toy (the toy belonging to the kittens); 20 years’ experience (20 years of experience) and The Collins’ house (the house belonging to the Collins family). There are a few exceptions to this rule: Since the plural of woman is women, the possessive would be ‘Women’s’ e.g. ‘Women’s clothes’. Same with man – men so ‘Men’s toilets’ and also children being the plural of child so ‘Children’s play area’. Two common incorrect examples are ‘Childrens clothing’ and ‘Womens hospital’.
Plural words end in s. e.g. one boy, two boys. One cow, two cows. Be careful though as there are exceptions e.g. sheep and fish. You don’t say sheeps or fishes. While I see nothing wrong with it, it unfortunately is not right and the plural is the same word as the singular. Anyway, moving on to possessives. For singular words, the apostrophe goes before the s. e.g. The boy’s room (the room belonging to the boy); the dog’s spots (the spots belonging to the dog); people’s opinions (the opinions of the people); this season’s apples (the apples of the season); Phil's calculator; and Australia’s number 1 holiday resort. Three common incorrect examples are ‘Todays specials’, ‘Seasons Greetings’ and ‘New Years Eve’. When we combine a plural with possession, the apostrophe goes after the s. e.g. The boys’ room (the room belonging to the boys); the kittens’ toy (the toy belonging to the kittens); 20 years’ experience (20 years of experience) and The Collins’ house (the house belonging to the Collins family). There are a few exceptions to this rule: Since the plural of woman is women, the possessive would be ‘Women’s’ e.g. ‘Women’s clothes’. Same with man – men so ‘Men’s toilets’ and also children being the plural of child so ‘Children’s play area’. Two common incorrect examples are ‘Childrens clothing’ and ‘Womens hospital’.
If ever you get confused about where to put the apostrophe, just write the word first in its singular or plural form and then add the apostrophe. e.g. Two months worth becomes Two months’ worth. It can’t be Two month’s worth because then you’d be saying Two month which doesn't make sense. Likewise, if it were only one month, you would write One month and then add the apostrophe S to make One month’s worth. It can’t be One months’ worth because then you’d be saying One months which again doesn't make sense. Hopefully this makes things a little clearer!
Having read the above, it is fairly obvious that this below ad should read ‘Marty’s Meats’. The quotation marks for "Your Local Quality Butcher" are also unnecessary but we will cover this later on.
Here’s another example. Since there is only one world (at least in this sense of the word), this should say ‘World’s best’. Two other examples of this same type of error are ‘Victorias finest holiday resorts’ and ‘Melbournes greatest restaurants’.
Sometimes we follow the above rules but we omit (leave out) the word that the possession refers to e.g. ‘I’m going to Dave’s for dinner’. In this example we are referring to Dave’s house but we have simply omitted the word ‘house’. Restaurants do this often e.g. McDonald’s, Hungry Jack’s, Wendy’s. The omitted word here would be ‘restaurant’ I suppose.
You'll notice that often restaurant menus will say ‘Kids Meals’ or Kid’s Meals’. Very rarely will it be written correctly as ‘Kids’ meals’.
Another common error when using plurals is in surnames. For example if your surname is Smith and you’re writing a card and you’re signing it off from all of your family, it would be very common to write ‘The Smith’s. The correct way to write this is simply ‘Smiths’, as it’s still a plural. Now for names that end in S already, this will look odd as we add an ES to the end e.g. signing a card off ‘The Collinses’. It’s not Collins' or Collins's. If you think this looks too messy though, you can avoid this by simply writing ‘The Collins family’. How easy is that? Other common surnames that do this are Jones (so, the Joneses or Jones family), Walters (Walterses or Walters family) and Williams (Williamses or Williams family). Try this exercise with your own surname. Mine is Lagatta so it’s fairly straightforward: The Lagattas, or The Lagatta family.
On a slightly related note, the plural of ‘Christmas’ is ‘Christmases’ e.g. ‘We will miss our Christmases together’.
Target recently put up their Christmas advertising in their stores. Their three slogans they went with were Get more gifts for him, Get more gifts for her, and Get more gifts for kids’. Kids’ what?? I'm not sure what they were thinking with that. Let’s also not forget Myer’s famous campaign last year when they wrote The early bird get’s the right size. That’s a unique way to use an apostrophe. It got mentioned on a few websites and blogs. Here are a couple of links:
http://www.writingbar.com/2012/01/grammar-and-punctuation/myer-and-the-great-apostrophe-gaffe-of-2012/
http://www.news.com.au/business/myer-ridiculed-over-grammar-gaffe/story-e6frfm1i-1226236132565
On the topic of errors occurring on a large scale, here are two movies that ran with errors in their titles! Two Weeks Notice and Couples Retreat. After hearing that last one you've got to ask “do they?” You wouldn't think that such an error could be made in a movie title would you? Of course the correct names should be Two Weeks’ Notice and Couples’ Retreat.
If you liked these two examples, check out some more here. I will warn you, some are a tad pedantic.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2014/08/18/movie-posters-with-errors_n_5676501.html?ir=Australia
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2014/08/18/movie-posters-with-errors_n_5676501.html?ir=Australia
That and Who –
Simply put, we use that when we’re talking about objects e.g. ‘the car that I bought last week’ and we use who when we’re referring to people e.g. ‘the man who used to live next door’. A very common error is using that instead of who e.g. ‘The woman that lived down the street’. Just remember object = that; person = who. Also remember that no matter how close you might be to your dog, unfortunately animals are still classified as objects and not people so use that for them, not who.
Simply put, we use that when we’re talking about objects e.g. ‘the car that I bought last week’ and we use who when we’re referring to people e.g. ‘the man who used to live next door’. A very common error is using that instead of who e.g. ‘The woman that lived down the street’. Just remember object = that; person = who. Also remember that no matter how close you might be to your dog, unfortunately animals are still classified as objects and not people so use that for them, not who.
Comma usage –
Commas are used for a variety of things. I won’t delve into every single use but I will mention the essentials:
Commas are used for a variety of things. I won’t delve into every single use but I will mention the essentials:
- When you are referring to a list, or when you are separating things in a series. E.g. ‘For dinner I had steak, vegetables and chips’ and ‘In my family I have a mother, father, two sisters, one brother and a dog’.
- When separating adjectives. E.g. ‘a wet, miserable morning’ and ‘a friendly, polite waitress’. Tip: if you can use the word ‘and’ in between the two adjectives, this is when the comma will work. ‘A wet and miserable morning’. Yep, that works. However, ‘we missed the hot, summer days’ would be incorrect because ‘the hot and summer days’ doesn't make sense. Another example: ‘a smart, funny person’, not ‘a smart, funny, person’ because that would read ‘a smart and funny and person’ which does not make sense.
- Before a place name and you are omitting words e.g. John Smith, Victoria (John Smith from Victoria), or ‘I visited London, England, last month’ (I visited London in England).
- When there is a brief pause in your sentence e.g. ‘In order to cook this dish, you must first prepare the following ingredients’ and ‘On the weeks leading up to Christmas, the shops are packed!’ If you miss out the comma, you will find that your sentence is too cluttered. You need to pause and a comma is the way to do this.
In case my example above was insufficient, here is an absolutely perfect example of when you should use an Oxford comma! As you can see, it clearly needs a comma after ‘cleaning’ to make a distinction between ‘cleaning’ and ‘delivery of pizzas’. As it reads, the suitable applicant for the job needs to be able to clean pizzas and that just sounds odd!
A very common misuse of commas is when they are used to join two independent clauses together. This is known as a comma splice. Let’s look at two examples: ‘I got up late this morning, I didn't have time for breakfast’ and ‘I love playing sport, it’s my favourite activity’. An independent clause is basically a simple sentence i.e. a sentence which can stand alone. Using a comma in these two examples is incorrect because each clause can stand alone. There are several ways to correct a comma splice, depending on the sentence. You can either reword the sentence e.g. ‘I got up late this morning and didn't have time for breakfast’. You could use a semi colon e.g. ‘I love playing sport; it’s my favourite activity’. You could also use a colon, depending on the sentence e.g. ‘We cannot reach town before dark: it is nearly half past five’. (More on semi colons and colons later on). Alternatively, you could simply use a full stop after each sentence. While your sentence may be a little bland, it would be perfectly acceptable. Very often I see big chunks of text, cluttered with commas. While commas are used for brief pauses, as read above, they are not used to separate sentences – this is what full stops are for. I once read a garage sale ad in the paper that read ‘Massive, moving house’. While the error is certainly not major, it made me laugh as all I could imagine was a giant house with legs! The correct way to write this is by either using a semi colon, or even just a full stop.
To the right is a sign at my gym.
As you can see, a comma alone would not cut it. It needs a semi colon in there to read ‘Take care of your body; it’s the only place you have to live’.
Last but not least, a comma that is very commonly omitted these days is one which precedes a proper noun at the end of sentences, often resulting in ambiguity. The example I thought of which demonstrates this quite well is ‘What did you get Dad?’ versus ‘What did you get, Dad?’ The first question could be a boy asking his Mum what she bought Dad for Christmas. The second question on the other hand could be a boy asking his Dad what he got for Christmas (or, what he got for someone else). Can you see the differences in meaning that can arise just from the placement of even a single comma? Also think about how ‘What’s up, Harry?’ differs from ‘What’s
up Harry?’ You get the picture.
A common example from work is ‘Time to rest now Ma’. While this one doesn't lead to ambiguity, nevertheless it should still be written as ‘Time to rest now, Ma’. Another three examples: ‘Time to take your boots off Bill’, ‘Dance on Nanna’ and ‘Party on people’. These three are clearly ambiguous and should clearly read ‘Time to take your boots off, Bill’, ‘Dance on, Nanna’ and ‘Party on, people’. We don’t want anyone putting their boots on Bill, nor do we want anyone dancing on Nanna, nor do we want anyone to party on each other. Think about how ‘Don’t ever change, Matt’ differs from ‘Don’t ever change Matt’. Also think about how ‘What’s up, Harry?’ differs from ‘What’s up Harry?’ You get the picture.
Let’s not forget the famous Let’s eat Grandma versus Let’s eat, Grandma example:
A common example from work is ‘Time to rest now Ma’. While this one doesn't lead to ambiguity, nevertheless it should still be written as ‘Time to rest now, Ma’. Another three examples: ‘Time to take your boots off Bill’, ‘Dance on Nanna’ and ‘Party on people’. These three are clearly ambiguous and should clearly read ‘Time to take your boots off, Bill’, ‘Dance on, Nanna’ and ‘Party on, people’. We don’t want anyone putting their boots on Bill, nor do we want anyone dancing on Nanna, nor do we want anyone to party on each other. Think about how ‘Don’t ever change, Matt’ differs from ‘Don’t ever change Matt’. Also think about how ‘What’s up, Harry?’ differs from ‘What’s up Harry?’ You get the picture.
Let’s not forget the famous Let’s eat Grandma versus Let’s eat, Grandma example:
As you can see, the power of even a single comma can make a big difference in your sentence. This next example demonstrates this even further.
It would appear as if the commas have somehow been forgotten and it literally reads that Rachael finds inspiration in cooking her family and her dog. Hopefully this is not what was meant and we can assume that it should have read Rachael Ray finds inspiration in cooking, her family, and her dog. As you will see, it would include the serial comma after family, just to show that there are definitely three separate things that Rachael finds inspiration in. Of course, knowing the internet these days, there’s a good possibility that this is a photoshop and that it was never wrong in the first place.
This next example is similar but is also poorly worded. Take a read from about halfway down 'It was touch and go...' It reads as if the two women lost their loved ones through Knox Council which I'm guessing is not what the writer’s intentions were. As you can see, it needs more than just commas to fix this terribly worded sentence.
To conclude, here is a link containing many examples of omitted commas, which I'm sure you'll find very entertaining! It even contains the Rachael Ray example above (which I'm fairly sure has been photoshopped)! Warning: contains explicit language.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/commas-are-the-most-important
http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/commas-are-the-most-important
More contractions –
So far we've looked at a few contractions, but there are more where the apostrophe sometimes goes missing. The three most common ones are Cant, Dont and Wont. The words you are looking for is Can't, Don’t and Won't. Can't is a contraction of 'cannot' (the apostrophe replaces the letters n and o), Don’t is short for ‘do not’ and Won't is short for ‘will not’. This is somewhat irregular as you can see and the basic story here is that the word ‘will’ used to be ‘woll’. Also, He’s (he is), She’s (she is), That’s (that is). Sometimes missing apostrophes can even create new words e.g. He'll (he will) would become Hell, She'll (she will) would become Shell, I'll (I will) would become Ill, We'll (we will) would become Well, and She’d (she would) would become Shed.
In short, if you’re ever confused, think about the words you’re writing and if you’re missing out letters then use the apostrophe. Don’t write ‘Im’ instead of ‘I'm’ and don’t confuse ‘lets’ with ‘let’s’ (let us).
So far we've looked at a few contractions, but there are more where the apostrophe sometimes goes missing. The three most common ones are Cant, Dont and Wont. The words you are looking for is Can't, Don’t and Won't. Can't is a contraction of 'cannot' (the apostrophe replaces the letters n and o), Don’t is short for ‘do not’ and Won't is short for ‘will not’. This is somewhat irregular as you can see and the basic story here is that the word ‘will’ used to be ‘woll’. Also, He’s (he is), She’s (she is), That’s (that is). Sometimes missing apostrophes can even create new words e.g. He'll (he will) would become Hell, She'll (she will) would become Shell, I'll (I will) would become Ill, We'll (we will) would become Well, and She’d (she would) would become Shed.
In short, if you’re ever confused, think about the words you’re writing and if you’re missing out letters then use the apostrophe. Don’t write ‘Im’ instead of ‘I'm’ and don’t confuse ‘lets’ with ‘let’s’ (let us).
Quotation marks –
Quotation marks mean just that – marks used for quotations. Let’s look at a couple of examples of how quotation marks should be used:
a) My mother always said, "Be careful of strange men."
b) My friend's favourite Shakespeare quote is "Better a witty fool than a foolish wit."
Quotation marks are not used for emphasis. Very often I see random sentences or phrases enclosed in quotation marks. For example, there’s a sign at my gym that says something like "Instruction is required from a professional trainer prior to using this equipment". Why does that need quotation marks? Does it lose its meaning without them? Absolutely not. Therefore, it is not necessary to use them. You know when you use those little air quotes with your fingers to signify sarcasm? Like ‘Oh yeah, he tells those really “funny” jokes.’ Well sometimes that’s how it reads when I see unnecessary quotation marks e.g. at work when customers request something like “You'll be greatly missed” on the bottom of a notice. Unless “You'll be greatly missed” is some sort of saying that was said often, it does kind of signify sarcasm, as in, you’re saying they'll be greatly missed but you don’t actually mean it. This next example demonstrates this perfectly! Is the restaurant really clean? Again, they’re using the quotation marks for emphasis. In this case, maybe put the word ‘clean’ in bold or capitals or something.
Speaking of air quotes for sarcasm, here's another clip from Friends. In this one, Joey doesn't know what the air quotes mean and uses them incorrectly as a result. |
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Feel free to check out the below link for some more humorous examples of quotation marks gone wrong:
https://www.distractify.com/unnecessary-quotes-sent-the-wrong-message-1325142291.html?ts_pid=2&utm_content=inf_10_385_2
Everyday and Every day –
This is also another common one which is almost always wrong. Everyday as one word is an adjective which means common, ordinary, or usual e.g. ‘Everyday item of business’ and ‘This is a great dress for everyday wear’. Every day as two words refers to a frequency in time i.e how often you do something. It basically means ‘each day’. For example: ‘I go for a walk every day’, ‘I have to work every day this week except Saturday’, ‘Every day I will miss you’, and ‘Lowest Prices every day’.
It is extremely common to see every day written as everyday. As we can see above, if the word precedes a noun and is being used as an adjective then everyday is the word you want to use, however, if you can replace the word with ‘each day’, then every day is what you want to use. You wouldn't think that a stationery company would get this wrong would you? Officeworks used to have “Lowest Prices Everyday” as their slogan before I told them about it. Since then, they have changed it to “Lowest Prices Every Day” not only in print but also on the big writing on their stores itself. And they say one person can’t make a difference...
This is also another common one which is almost always wrong. Everyday as one word is an adjective which means common, ordinary, or usual e.g. ‘Everyday item of business’ and ‘This is a great dress for everyday wear’. Every day as two words refers to a frequency in time i.e how often you do something. It basically means ‘each day’. For example: ‘I go for a walk every day’, ‘I have to work every day this week except Saturday’, ‘Every day I will miss you’, and ‘Lowest Prices every day’.
It is extremely common to see every day written as everyday. As we can see above, if the word precedes a noun and is being used as an adjective then everyday is the word you want to use, however, if you can replace the word with ‘each day’, then every day is what you want to use. You wouldn't think that a stationery company would get this wrong would you? Officeworks used to have “Lowest Prices Everyday” as their slogan before I told them about it. Since then, they have changed it to “Lowest Prices Every Day” not only in print but also on the big writing on their stores itself. And they say one person can’t make a difference...
Maybe and May be –
This is very similar to Everyday and Every day, above. Maybe is an adverb and it means ‘perhaps’ or ‘possibly’. For example: ‘Maybe I'll make a sandwich’ and “Are you coming tonight?” “Maybe.” May be is a verb phrase which means ‘might be’ or ‘could be’ e.g. ‘I may be taking time off over Easter to spend with family’ and ‘they may be out of stock’. Can you see how these two examples wouldn't make much sense if we used ‘maybe’ instead of ‘may be’? If ever you’re unsure, test out your sentence by replacing maybe/may be with ‘perhaps’. If it sounds right, then maybe is correct. If it sounds wrong, then it should be may be. ‘Perhaps I'll go for a walk’ = maybe. ‘She perhaps pregnant’ = may be.
This is very similar to Everyday and Every day, above. Maybe is an adverb and it means ‘perhaps’ or ‘possibly’. For example: ‘Maybe I'll make a sandwich’ and “Are you coming tonight?” “Maybe.” May be is a verb phrase which means ‘might be’ or ‘could be’ e.g. ‘I may be taking time off over Easter to spend with family’ and ‘they may be out of stock’. Can you see how these two examples wouldn't make much sense if we used ‘maybe’ instead of ‘may be’? If ever you’re unsure, test out your sentence by replacing maybe/may be with ‘perhaps’. If it sounds right, then maybe is correct. If it sounds wrong, then it should be may be. ‘Perhaps I'll go for a walk’ = maybe. ‘She perhaps pregnant’ = may be.
Colons and Semi colons –
While they may look similar, colons should not be confused with semi colons as they do not have the same meaning. To clarify, a colon looks like this : and a semi colon looks like this ; We looked at semi colons above and its most common use is when you are connecting two short clauses together to form a sentence e.g. ‘She walked past me in class today; she was wearing sweet-smelling perfume’. Obviously this only works when the clauses relate to each other. A more complicated example: ‘When we’re together, we create great music; it’s all about the music’. Semi colons can also be used when we’re writing a list and we need something with a little more power than a comma. Let me demonstrate: ‘On my holidays with my mate, we travelled to Paris, France; Venice, Italy; and London, England’. As you can see, the semi colons are used like commas to separate entries but since we’re already using commas, we need to use semi colons. If we used commas alone, that sentence would be very confusing and wouldn't make much sense. Let’s look at one more example: ‘Three main characters in the series are Ned Stark, a dedicated husband and father; Tyrion Lannister, a witty and intelligent dwarf; and Jon Snow, a loyal warrior’. In this example, again the semi colons are separating entries and eliminate a lot of ambiguity.
Colons are used similarly to semi colons in the first instance of connecting clauses that relate to each other, the only difference being that the second clause needs to directly relate to the first e.g. the example I used above: ‘We cannot reach town before dark: it is nearly half past five’. Also, ‘He didn't want to go to school today: he didn't feel well’. Colons can also be used to introduce something that you’re about to refer to, much like how I have used above and am about to do: ‘I have only one rule in my house: remove your shoes before entering’. Also, ‘I brought three items into the exam room: a pencil, a pen, and a calculator’. Lastly, colons can also be used to introduce a list e.g. ‘You will need: 1 onion, 2 carrots, 3 celery sticks’. When being used in this fashion, a bulleted list can be used. This is seen often in job advertisements.
While they may look similar, colons should not be confused with semi colons as they do not have the same meaning. To clarify, a colon looks like this : and a semi colon looks like this ; We looked at semi colons above and its most common use is when you are connecting two short clauses together to form a sentence e.g. ‘She walked past me in class today; she was wearing sweet-smelling perfume’. Obviously this only works when the clauses relate to each other. A more complicated example: ‘When we’re together, we create great music; it’s all about the music’. Semi colons can also be used when we’re writing a list and we need something with a little more power than a comma. Let me demonstrate: ‘On my holidays with my mate, we travelled to Paris, France; Venice, Italy; and London, England’. As you can see, the semi colons are used like commas to separate entries but since we’re already using commas, we need to use semi colons. If we used commas alone, that sentence would be very confusing and wouldn't make much sense. Let’s look at one more example: ‘Three main characters in the series are Ned Stark, a dedicated husband and father; Tyrion Lannister, a witty and intelligent dwarf; and Jon Snow, a loyal warrior’. In this example, again the semi colons are separating entries and eliminate a lot of ambiguity.
Colons are used similarly to semi colons in the first instance of connecting clauses that relate to each other, the only difference being that the second clause needs to directly relate to the first e.g. the example I used above: ‘We cannot reach town before dark: it is nearly half past five’. Also, ‘He didn't want to go to school today: he didn't feel well’. Colons can also be used to introduce something that you’re about to refer to, much like how I have used above and am about to do: ‘I have only one rule in my house: remove your shoes before entering’. Also, ‘I brought three items into the exam room: a pencil, a pen, and a calculator’. Lastly, colons can also be used to introduce a list e.g. ‘You will need: 1 onion, 2 carrots, 3 celery sticks’. When being used in this fashion, a bulleted list can be used. This is seen often in job advertisements.
A common mistake is to use a semi colon there instead of a colon (there are two in the above example).
When using colons, don't forget that the two clauses need to be able to stand alone though. E.g. in my example ‘I brought three items into the exam room: a pencil, a pen, and a calculator’, both these clauses can stand alone as sentences. If we were to write ‘The three items I brought into the exam room were: a pencil, a pen, and a calculator’, this would be incorrect as that first clause cannot stand alone as its own sentence.
Thank you or Thankyou –
99% of the time the word you will be looking for is Thank you e.g. ‘Thank you for your attendance at our wedding'. Used in this way, thank you is being used a verb, as in ‘I thank you’. It is very common to see this being written as one word – thankyou, which is incorrect.
Thankyou as one word is used as a noun or an adjective and is not seen very often. As a noun: ‘He gave a big thankyou to all who attended’ and ‘Don’t forget your pleases and thankyous’. As an adjective: ‘She wrote thankyou letters to everyone’. Some people will hyphenate this form to thank-you e.g. ‘a thank-you letter’.
99% of the time the word you will be looking for is Thank you e.g. ‘Thank you for your attendance at our wedding'. Used in this way, thank you is being used a verb, as in ‘I thank you’. It is very common to see this being written as one word – thankyou, which is incorrect.
Thankyou as one word is used as a noun or an adjective and is not seen very often. As a noun: ‘He gave a big thankyou to all who attended’ and ‘Don’t forget your pleases and thankyous’. As an adjective: ‘She wrote thankyou letters to everyone’. Some people will hyphenate this form to thank-you e.g. ‘a thank-you letter’.
You vs I –
I'm sure in school you would have written a sentence like ‘Me and Jack went to the park’ and your teacher would have corrected you saying it should be ‘Jack and I went to the park’. Now, while this is correct, we cannot use this rule as a blanket rule as there are some situations where we do not use ‘I’. In examples like above where you are the subject of the sentence then yes, you use ‘I’. However, if you are the object in the sentence, you use ‘me’. E.g. ‘She'll discuss it with you and me later’ and ‘the dog followed Claire and me down the road’. ‘Me’ is correct in these examples and not ‘I’ and here’s how you can tell. Consider taking the other person out of the equation. Now, does ‘I’ or ‘me’ make sense? Let’s take a look: ‘She'll discuss it with me later’. Yes, that makes sense. If you wrote ‘She'll discuss it with you and I later’, this would read ‘She'll discuss it with I later’ which isn't right. Therefore, it must be ‘me’. Exactly the same with the second example: ‘The dog followed me down the road’. Yes, that sounds right. ‘The dog followed I down the road’. Nope, that doesn't sound right. A common phrase which contains this error is ‘Between you and I’. This should be ‘Between you and me’ because you wouldn't say ‘Between I’, would you? You would say ‘Between me’.
Nickelback are unfortunately guilty of this error in their song, Satellite:
'Cause life slips by without a warning
And I'm tired of ignoring all the space that's between you and I
For further clarification, let Dilbert explain this for you:
I'm sure in school you would have written a sentence like ‘Me and Jack went to the park’ and your teacher would have corrected you saying it should be ‘Jack and I went to the park’. Now, while this is correct, we cannot use this rule as a blanket rule as there are some situations where we do not use ‘I’. In examples like above where you are the subject of the sentence then yes, you use ‘I’. However, if you are the object in the sentence, you use ‘me’. E.g. ‘She'll discuss it with you and me later’ and ‘the dog followed Claire and me down the road’. ‘Me’ is correct in these examples and not ‘I’ and here’s how you can tell. Consider taking the other person out of the equation. Now, does ‘I’ or ‘me’ make sense? Let’s take a look: ‘She'll discuss it with me later’. Yes, that makes sense. If you wrote ‘She'll discuss it with you and I later’, this would read ‘She'll discuss it with I later’ which isn't right. Therefore, it must be ‘me’. Exactly the same with the second example: ‘The dog followed me down the road’. Yes, that sounds right. ‘The dog followed I down the road’. Nope, that doesn't sound right. A common phrase which contains this error is ‘Between you and I’. This should be ‘Between you and me’ because you wouldn't say ‘Between I’, would you? You would say ‘Between me’.
Nickelback are unfortunately guilty of this error in their song, Satellite:
'Cause life slips by without a warning
And I'm tired of ignoring all the space that's between you and I
For further clarification, let Dilbert explain this for you:
A vs An –
We know the general rule here. If a word starts with a vowel, we use An instead of A, and if we’re saying it aloud, Thee instead of The. An egg, an alligator, an anorak, etc. My mother’s example was thee elephant as opposed to the elephant. But is it if the word starts with a vowel? Not quite. It’s actually if the word starts with a vowel sound. For example an unicycle? An unicorn? No…. These words may start with a vowel, but the sound they make is that of a Y, therefore it is a unicycle and a unicorn (or the unicycle /unicorn). The USA is another example (not thee USA), or even if you say the United States as the vowel sound doesn't change here…
On the contrary, there are words which start with a consonant but start with a vowel sound. Some of these can be acronyms. For example, you might say that you have a rostered day off but if you abbreviated that to RDO, you would say ‘I have an RDO’ as RDO starts with a vowel sound (‘are’). The same applies for an HC driver. H starts with a vowel sound therefore you would say you are looking for an HC driver, but if you’re spelling out the word, you would say that you need a heavy combination driver.
Lastly, you will sometimes see ‘an historic’. Going by what I just said, it should be ‘a historic’ as historic does not start with a vowel sound. The word honest on the other hand, does, so it should be ‘an honest person’. Also the word honorary (you will see this word in the next section).
Oxford Dictionaries covers this pretty well:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/a-historic-event-or-an-historic-event
We know the general rule here. If a word starts with a vowel, we use An instead of A, and if we’re saying it aloud, Thee instead of The. An egg, an alligator, an anorak, etc. My mother’s example was thee elephant as opposed to the elephant. But is it if the word starts with a vowel? Not quite. It’s actually if the word starts with a vowel sound. For example an unicycle? An unicorn? No…. These words may start with a vowel, but the sound they make is that of a Y, therefore it is a unicycle and a unicorn (or the unicycle /unicorn). The USA is another example (not thee USA), or even if you say the United States as the vowel sound doesn't change here…
On the contrary, there are words which start with a consonant but start with a vowel sound. Some of these can be acronyms. For example, you might say that you have a rostered day off but if you abbreviated that to RDO, you would say ‘I have an RDO’ as RDO starts with a vowel sound (‘are’). The same applies for an HC driver. H starts with a vowel sound therefore you would say you are looking for an HC driver, but if you’re spelling out the word, you would say that you need a heavy combination driver.
Lastly, you will sometimes see ‘an historic’. Going by what I just said, it should be ‘a historic’ as historic does not start with a vowel sound. The word honest on the other hand, does, so it should be ‘an honest person’. Also the word honorary (you will see this word in the next section).
Oxford Dictionaries covers this pretty well:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/a-historic-event-or-an-historic-event
American spellings –
Lastly, I thought I’d add a small section on American spellings, I guess to clear up confusion. Just when you think you've got your spelling and grammar down pat, you start to doubt yourself because of these different spellings you see around, especially since society nowadays is very much Americanized (spelling intentional; you'll see why in a minute). Hopefully this section will set the record straight. While there are a lot of differences between Australian English and American English, I'll only go through the most common words here...
Lastly, I thought I’d add a small section on American spellings, I guess to clear up confusion. Just when you think you've got your spelling and grammar down pat, you start to doubt yourself because of these different spellings you see around, especially since society nowadays is very much Americanized (spelling intentional; you'll see why in a minute). Hopefully this section will set the record straight. While there are a lot of differences between Australian English and American English, I'll only go through the most common words here...
The two most common words are the words color and favorite. I'm sure a lot of you once owned a Game Boy Color. We would have seen favorites from the days when Internet Explorer was the only web browser. Of course, in Australian English we would add a U in these two words to make colour and favourite.
How to spot an Americanized word:
- -ize endings e.g. realize, criticize, authorize, emphasize, organize, recognize. All these words we would spell with -ise – realise, criticise, authorise, etc. On a similar note, there are two words which end -yze where we would spell -yse: analyze (analyse) and paralyze (paralyse).
- -or endings e.g. honor, humor, neighbor, labor, behavior, flavor, rumor, parlor, armor, endeavor, odor, savor, vapor. All these words we would spell with -our – honour, humour, neighbour, etc. Watch out for honorary and humorous though as for some reason these two words drop the U. (I don't like it either!) Another exception is the word ‘Colorbond’ and this is because it’s a word which comes from the brand name (which I'm assuming is an American company).
- -er endings e.g. meter (and thus millimeter, centimeter and kilometer), center, theater, fiber, liter. All these words we would spell with -re – metre, centre, theatre, etc.
- Words with a single L where we would use a double e.g. jewelry, counselor, canceled, leveled, marvelous, modeling. All these words we would spell with a double L – jewellery, counsellor, cancelled, etc. Note the dropping of the E in jewellery also.
- Words which contain -e in them when we would usually spell it with -ae or -oe. Examples are diarrhea (diarrhoea), estrogen (oestrogen), fetus (foetus), anemia (anaemia), cesarean (caesarean), leukemia (leukaemia), paleontology (palaeontology) and pediatric (paediatric).
- -se endings e.g. license, practise, offense, defense. For the second two, we would spell them with -ce –offence, defence. For license and practise, however, it depends if we are using the word as a verb or a noun and we will cover this in the next section. American spelling on the other hand does not distinguish between the two and uses -se forms for both.
- Other differences are inquiry (enquiry), check (cheque), gray (grey), tire (tyre), curb (kerb), pajamas (pyjamas), licorice (liquorice), mold (mould), sulfate (sulphate), mustache (moustache), whiskey (whisky), airplane (aeroplane) and aluminum (aluminium).
For Balls of Steel fans, here is a funny video which involves American spellings. Bit of background, Balls of Steel was originally an English TV series but they decided to film a few shows in the US, I guess to try and see how the same jokes work in different societies. Other TV shows have done this also. The show also did an Australian version but it was nowhere near as good.
n.b. the clip is slightly crude so please do not watch if you are easily offended. It’s all meant to be in jest though.
n.b. the clip is slightly crude so please do not watch if you are easily offended. It’s all meant to be in jest though.