Your, Yours, You're

[Aramethea]

Not to get off on a rant here, but this drives me spare.

The improper usage of your and you're.

My local paper, a rag not worth the paper it's printed on, repeatedly gets this wrong. I don't know what is up with the editing staff there, but my goodness, they're awful. Recently, they ran an ad that said this :

If your going on a trip, and you need planning help, call Shane at Liberty Travel. He can help with all you're vacation planning needs.

How can the editor not catch this? It's very simple. "Your" implies ownership. "That bag is yours." - ie it belongs to you. "You're getting on my nerves with your improper use of English." - ie it is something you are doing. Am I the only one with this problem?  

[Ithaya]

Nope. Annoys the hell out of me too. I don't think I've ever read anything printed like that though...
It's quite simple. You're is a contraction of you are, hence the apostrophe. The other's ownership. Now who can't understand that?

Same with their, they're and there. That doesn't happen so often though.

But its/it's is the most common mistake...*Shudder.* Again, fairly simple, but no one ever explains! I had to look this up myself about six months ago (when I became pedantic). I just couldn't grasp it because no one had ever told me straight. And there's also the fact that most posessives need an apostrophe...But now I'll never get them mixed up unless it's a typo.

Have a look in the Did ewe no that homophones are a pane in the but? thread.  

[beliael]

It drives me nuts too. Especially when people use the wrong word for insults, e.g. "your gay". My gay what? stare  

[D e a t h i e]

I HATE when people make that mistake,. I knew this one guy who would always say 'thier' (Not a you one but still in the same boat). I would always tell him that one he was SPELLING it wrong and two he was USING it wrong. Needless to say for a verrry long time he thought of me as a nag, with me always correcting him. Finally he figured it out that yes everyone else was spelling 'their' and secondly that there was such thing as 'there' and 'they're.'

But what bothered me for the longest time was that since he was a few years older many of my other friends started to pick up his 'thier' habit gonk  

[Kohy]

It annoys me also, and sometimes I try and tell the person doing this that they've used it in the wrong context. Sometimes it works, other times, it doesn't.

But the main thing that annoys me is the usage of 'than' and 'then'. I can't seem to understand this one as they are not only spelt differently, but sound different also. How can you mistake the two?  

[DarkElf27]

Please, don't get me going on school newspapers...  

[Ithaya]

Kohy

It annoys me also, and sometimes I try and tell the person doing this that they've used it in the wrong context. Sometimes it works, other times, it doesn't.

But the main thing that annoys me is the usage of 'than' and 'then'. I can't seem to understand this one as they are not only spelt differently, but sound different also. How can you mistake the two?

I can honestly say I've never seen anyone mix up 'then' and 'than'. But wouldn't it be a typo? Or are people doing this repeatedly? Or worse...in handwriting?  

[Kohy]

Ikonik Angel

Kohy

It annoys me also, and sometimes I try and tell the person doing this that they've used it in the wrong context. Sometimes it works, other times, it doesn't.

But the main thing that annoys me is the usage of 'than' and 'then'. I can't seem to understand this one as they are not only spelt differently, but sound different also. How can you mistake the two?

I can honestly say I've never seen anyone mix up 'then' and 'than'. But wouldn't it be a typo? Or are people doing this repeatedly? Or worse...in handwriting?

Repeatedly and in handwriting...You can tell when someone has just made a slight error, because the other times they've corrected it, but I've read fanfics where someone repeatedly uses 'then' for 'than'.  

[chrystalclear]

Kohy

Ikonik Angel

Kohy

It annoys me also, and sometimes I try and tell the person doing this that they've used it in the wrong context. Sometimes it works, other times, it doesn't.

But the main thing that annoys me is the usage of 'than' and 'then'. I can't seem to understand this one as they are not only spelt differently, but sound different also. How can you mistake the two?

I can honestly say I've never seen anyone mix up 'then' and 'than'. But wouldn't it be a typo? Or are people doing this repeatedly? Or worse...in handwriting?

Repeatedly and in handwriting...You can tell when someone has just made a slight error, because the other times they've corrected it, but I've read fanfics where someone repeatedly uses 'then' for 'than'.

That's pretty bad. I can't see how one could mistake the two, unless the typer/writer is still learning to read and spell, which I highly doubt if they are writing a fanfic.  

[Ame Yuki Kaze]

I've read some fanfics that were so poorly written, I had to stop before I went insane.

I've seen "you're" and "your" get swapped so many times, it's not even funny.

Well this is why I made that other thread anyway. If anyone knows any homophones that I haven't listed, feel free to add them to the list.

flea - Aw, looks like Rover has fleas again.
flee - Let's flee from that hungry T. rex!

lamb - Aw, look at the cute little lamb. I'm hungry for lambchops.
lam - I went on the lam so I wouldn't have to go to jail.  

[GiftNinja xD]

beliael

It drives me nuts too. Especially when people use the wrong word for insults, e.g. "your gay". My gay what? stare

Yeah, that really pisses me off to. If they are not going to even spell it right you've already won the battle. It's pointless. stressed  

[Kipluck]

Aramethea

Not to get off on a rant here, but this drives me spare.

The improper usage of your and you're.

My local paper, a rag not worth the paper it's printed on, repeatedly gets this wrong. I don't know what is up with the editing staff there, but my goodness, they're awful. Recently, they ran an ad that said this :

If your going on a trip, and you need planning help, call Shane at Liberty Travel. He can help with all you're vacation planning needs.

How can the editor not catch this? It's very simple. "Your" implies ownership. "That bag is yours." - ie it belongs to you. "You're getting on my nerves with your improper use of English." - ie it is something you are doing. Am I the only one with this problem?

I think the problem lies in the PART of the paper. I assume (or at least HOPE) that an editor would go over a news story, but the ads are being put in straight from the customer's scribbles by some minimum wage data entry kid. Pathetic. I see it all the time in ads, though. The world is full of idiots.  

[Ame Yuki Kaze]

kipluck quoth:

Quote:

The world is full of idiots.

Yes, and unfortunately they seem to be in power (look at the White House).  

[Litia_Echo]

yes, bunchs of stupid people... stressed  

[Sachiko13]

Yami no Hitokiri

I've read some fanfics that were so poorly written, I had to stop before I went insane.

I've seen "you're" and "your" get swapped so many times, it's not even funny.

Well this is why I made that other thread anyway. If anyone knows any homophones that I haven't listed, feel free to add them to the list.

flea - Aw, looks like Rover has fleas again.
flee - Let's flee from that hungry T. rex!

lamb - Aw, look at the cute little lamb. I'm hungry for lambchops.
lam - I went on the lam so I wouldn't have to go to jail.

i usually have to print out, edit, and retype fanfics before i can read them. after that, they're quite easy to read. the problem i come across most is a mixup of tenses-people tend to begin in either past or present, and repeatedly switch between the two at random, so i have to entirely rewrite sentences, which usually takes a couple minutes pondering what the author was trying to say.