Happy holidays. It felt good to sleep in on a Monday morning. Today I’m going to touch on a topic that affects everyone one of us – grammar, with an emphasis on spelling mistakes. So far my mother has been my biggest supporter and most frequent reader. I find it very encouraging and uplifting. I consider myself to be a person with a good command of the English language; vocabulary, spelling, grammar etc. So you can imagine my horror when my mum sent me a text asking me to be more careful about spelling errors aka “gbagauns”. In my mind, I’m thinking, “Me? Spelling errors? Impossible!”Then I began to go through previous posts and what I found was saddening; my mother was right, I did have a scattering of errors here and there. Now I’m not even going to go over the many things that could be responsible for this, such as typing half asleep, over-confidence or even simple laziness to proof read but I believe that these mistakes can be avoided. The first step is knowing that you have made an error; this is easier when you misspell a word (for instance beleive instead of believe), spell-check usually helps with that. But when the incorrect word is actually a word in its (I nearly made a mistake here :() own right, what do you do? Let’s take a look at common spelling mix-ups and hope that we all can learn to spot the difference.
1. Its and It’s
This is probably the most common mix-up. I almost made it once already. Its is a possessive adjective; just like his and hers. So using Its in a sentence should give something like ” The baby is crying, its eyes are red” (It took me a long time to think up this sentence). It’s on the other hand is a contraction of “It is” or “It has”. The apostrophe does not show possession but a missing letter; so a person can say “It’s been raining all day” or “It’s such a beautiful picture”. Basically when denoting possession, in this case skip the apostrophe.
2.They’re, There, Their
This is another error which is a result of similar pronunciations. They’re is a contraction for they are, which is the 3rd person plural conjugation of the verb, to be. So we have “They’re on their way”. There is one of those words which is a pronoun, adjective and adverb all at once. It can be used to show position as the opposite of here. For example, “The food is there on the table” or “There are 11 players on a football team”. Their is a possessive adjective. It shows ownership, therefore it is followed by a noun. “Their family is Hispanic” is a good example.
3. Your, You’re
This is one mistake I find a bit annoying, I don’t know why. You’re is a contraction of you are which is the 2nd person conjugation of the verb, to be. So you say “You’re a really awesome person Chiebuka (why, thank you :))” or “Get me a drink, while you’re at the shop”. Your is a possessive adjective also known as a determiner. So you say, “This is your car, it is yours”.
4. Where, Were
“Where have you been? Your mother and I were at your hostel, but you weren’t there” I’m sure some of you dread the day you will hear this sentence, but I digress. I’ve seen people use where and were interchangeably, it has got to stop. Were is the past tense of “are” which is a verb that indicates a state of being. It is one of the conjugations of the verb be, which also include am, is, are and was. For instance, “Where are you?” becomes “Where were you?” Where, on the other hand, is a relative pronoun used to add more information to a sentence (or show a relationship) For instance, “This is the salon where I make my hair”. It is also used in an interrogative sentence as demonstrated earlier.
I could think up a lot more, but these are the most common errors I have noticed. What errors are you prone to in your writing? Do share in the comment section. Enjoy the rest of the holiday.
P.S. I’ve proof-read this article more times than I’ve brushed my teeth or drunk water today. Any “gbagaun” you happen to find is really the universe throwing me off my high horse.