Grammar: A few Blogging tips

~ beetleypete

Mainly aimed at younger and new bloggers, I thought it was time to suggest a few things regarding blog posts.

Don’t forget, you are writing. If that writing is in English, you have to obey the rules of grammar. After all, this is not texting or Facebook, and LOL is not a word, however much you might want it to be.

Here are some very basic rules. Rules that are constantly broken, or ignored.

YOU’RE means ‘You Are’
YOUR, means ‘belonging to. As in ‘That is YOUR hat’
IT’S means ‘It Is’
ITS means belong to, as in ‘I could tell that was its hat’.
THERE means a place, a destination, or a specific point. As in. ‘Put your hat on the hook, over there’.
THEY’RE means ‘They are’. As in, ‘They’re over there’.
Apostrophes denote many things, but mostly ‘belonging to’.
TRAPS, VIDEOS, TYRES, CARS, FRUITS, VEGETABLES, etc, do not need one. Raspberry’s is wrong, unless you mean ‘The Raspberry’s colour’. Video’s is always wrong, unless you mean ‘The Video’s content’. And so on…
THEIR means to belong to something, as in ‘Those men, and their hats’. It is never ‘They’re hats’, or ‘There, hats’ unless you mean ‘They are hats’ or ‘There are hats’. Are you with me, so far?

I know it’s annoying, and rather complicated. But it is English, and our language.
It needs to be treated with respect, or it will go under in a sea of mistakes, and become something else.

Something that is not correct. Please try harder. It is blogging, not texting. And it is not negotiable.

Am I being pedantic? Look it up.

71 thoughts on “Grammar: A few Blogging tips”

  3. Pete, I’ve noticed on social media that the apostrophe is widely abused. It’s used when it shouldn’t be, and not used when it should be. It also sometimes doubles as a diacritical mark. Rather than use the grave or acute accent, an apostrophe is often mistakenly placed after the letter. Example: touche’. Of course, it should be written touché.

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    1. Supposedly correct grammar is a minefield, as accepted differences are constantly changing. The use of the apostrophe for accents is not acceptable, I agree. I tend not to source accents myself, and would just leave it at touche, presuming the reader understood.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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      1. I was also taught grammar very strictly at school. I have my moments where it really matters to me but the more emails I get at work that are a bit all over the shop grammatically, the more comfortable I become with letting it go. I guess as long as I can understand what you are asking me or telling me then it’s mostly okay. My one major exception is our receptionist at work who regularly emails the entire staff based in London (about 300 of us). Her grammar is atrocious and she is often difficult to understand. I think that kind of official communication needs to be correct.

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        1. I am with you there, Abbi. I have come to accept that language and grammar changes over time. After all, our modern English would seem strange to Chaucer. When it gets so bad that it becomes nonsensical, or fails to give the right information, then it is time to rectify the slide.
          Best wishes, Pete.

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  12. I don’t like ‘bored of’ either, but I have seen it in a newspaper and I have given up trying to stop people writing ‘different to.’ I think that is now the established use.I did start correcting folk on twitter until I realised they were using homophones and could be dyslexic. I don’t want to make life any harder for them.There are times to be pedantic and times to be flexible.I must try to subdue the schoolteacher in me!

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    1. Thanks, Julie. I am guilty of ‘different to’. I hold my hands up to that one.
      I would like to be able to afford to send every blogger a copy of ‘Eats, Shoots, and Leaves’ by Lynn Truss. I really enjoyed that book.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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    1. Thanks, V. Younger people brought up with very tolerant teachers, texting, and emails are more likely to make these common mistakes. We all have off days though, that’ s very true. We also make typing errors, but I allow for those.
      Cheers, Pete.

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  14. Just out of interest, how do you feel about ‘bored of’? I had a friend who used to rant regularly about bad grammar on facebook, yet ‘bored of’ often appeared in her own posts and it really used to grate with me. Thing is, I think it only grates so much because my mother drummed it into me that it should be ‘bored with’. Without that, I, too, would be using it without a second thought.

    https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/bored-by-of-or-with

    I suspect future generations won’t question it. No doubt, LOL, lol, or even loll, will be a proper word by then and, to avoid confusion, our present word ‘loll’ will slowly disappear to be replaced by some other colloquialism.

    Apostrophes, however, become meaningless without some sense of logic behind them, so either the rules for their correct use will be maintained or they will become obsolete.

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    1. I may well have used that wrong construction myself, Ros. Without looking back, I can’t be sure. I was taught ‘Bored by’, as I recall, though I have certainly used ‘Bored with’ in conversation. Mostly relating to being ‘bored with all the repeats on TV’, I suspect.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  16. Careful, careful. I blogged about this a few days ago. I also noticed that some people use apostrophe after the word for plural form, it’s ugly. We could ignore grammar when texting but not when writing.

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  17. There are not enough thanks for this post. It drives me crazy when I read purposefully incorrect grammar. Remember when it was considered “cool” to use all lower case letters in writing? Ugh! I shake my head at the regular mistakes, too. Yes, blogging is not texting or FaceBook. So, yes, grammar is important. My word, I sound just like my high school English teacher. She was good, but tough.

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  18. I try to do my best with grammar but probably get apostrophes/’s/’ wrong now and then. Not a fan of LOL but am a bugger for 😊 which a fair few people have unhappy feelings towards. So I tend to wince at anyone’s mistakes that I spot but get past it quickly as I’m not perfect either.

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    1. I have only used the smiley face since I started blogging. I realised that it helps to clarify when I am being self-deprecating, or ironic. There were occasions in the past when my comments were misunderstood, and that new symbol seems to help. I am also far from perfect, but the frequent errors of ‘You’re/Your’ and Its/It’s’ do bother me. They do not mean the same thing, and I suppose that the rather strict English teachers of my youth made me very conscious of not making those mistakes.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  19. I think I could find myself in a minority of one here.

    I know how to write clearly, and I understand grammar. I even know how apostrophe’s work (see what I did there?). LOL. You are quite correct when you say that LOL isn’t a word. It’s an acronym.

    I think that as long as meaning isn’t lost, then there is no real need for many of the rules. You can’t hear an apostrophe, after all.

    Are you being pedantic? According to Freud, a pedant is someone who is unable to laugh at him self. I wouldn’t put you into that category of person. It’s fine not to like something, though.

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    1. Thanks for your thoughts and opinion, Ian. I suppose I am what could best be described as ‘old school’. I see no reason to throw out perfectly good grammatical rules, although I do accept some element of progress and change.
      And you know me well enough to know that I am capable of laughing at myself, even if I often disguise the fact that I am doing so.
      Cheers, Pete.

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  24. Hurrah! We need more posts like this everywhere. I’m so sick of the mistakes, even from those who purport to be writers and publish their own books and those of others and yet fall at the first hurdle. If publishing is one of the services they offer, every new post needs to give a good impression. If that post is chock-full of errors, what does it say about their ability to provide a professional service when it comes to publishing a novel or whatever? There is someone we both follow who makes the most elementary mistakes every time. They are the last people I would choose if I wanted to publish my book. (You can have your soap box back now!) x

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