Friday Funnies: Comforting a Grammar Nazi

[ariestess]

Today's Friday Funny combines one of my biggest pet peeves with one of my all time favorite comic strips.



This particular homophone issue has been handled previously in fandom_grammar by melayneseahawk in another Friday Funny and chiroho in a Blast From the Past about a year ago, as well as green_grrl's article from 2008.

I do want to point out that there are some countries where the use of "Nazi" would not be prudent, so usually said person would be called a "Grammar Fiend" or some other variation on that.

I don't know about any other grammarians, but this one is tied with your/you're and to/two/too for a grammar-related issue that can set my blood to boiling instantly when I see it. It's also one of my big reasons to advocate for a beta, because spellcheck doesn't always catch these issues. And don't get me started on that period that should actually be a comma, or the missing period at the end of the phrase.

So what do you do to make sure you don't confuse these homophones?

Comments

[theidolhands.livejournal.com]

Saw this funny recently too:

[ariestess]

Ahaha! I love it!

[shirleyann66.livejournal.com]

*poking my head up lurkerdom*

So what do you do to make sure you don't confuse these homophones?

When I'm not sure, I speak the sentence fragment out loud, without any contractions I mostly get confused with its vs it's and who's vs whose, and saying it clears up any confusion (at least for me).

*sees shadow; ducks back into lurkerdom*

[ariestess]

I like that as a way to determine which version is right.

[srsly-yes.livejournal.com]

I don't know about any other grammarians, but this one is tied with your/you're and to/two/too for a grammar-related issue that can set my blood to boiling instantly when I see it.
This attitude is my pet peeve. I just have to speak up about this holier than thou attitude about the above homophone mistakes. I know the difference, and I'm sure that goes for many more writers, but some of us process differently than you do. When I type, my thoughts flow onto the keyboard, and my fingers are blind and deaf to the wrong spellings. Worse, when I proofread, my brain sweeps the copy clean. Aware of my weakness, I maintain a checklist of my top fab typos at the top of the working document and word search for your/you're, etc even before sending it to my beta--I don't want to overwhelm her.

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure where you would run into this attitude since you self-check and beta. Almost everyone types homophones when in the flow and the whole point of the post is to say, "check for this mistake" (or have a beta do it), just exactly as you do. That you check for it even before your work goes to beta is very thoughtful. The checklist of common typos is a great idea!

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

THIS. I kick myself for reading YouTube comment flamewars where English grammar elitists attack someone's spelling instead of debating the central topic. (And most of the time, the flamewar has NOTHING to do with the video. LOL)

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I'd like to think that we have fandom_grammar features because people want to improve their grammar and spelling in fanworks - and response is generally positive to our articles.

While I would never go and flame anyone on YouTube (who does that?), I confess after years of proofreading semi-professionally (not a full-time proofreader but it's been part of my work life for a long time), it's very difficult to turn your brain off when it comes to grammar mistakes, even the relatively easy to confuse ones.

[ariestess]

On the tail of what green_grrl said, I'm a HUGE fan of self-check and beta in writers. I apologize if my wording came off as "holier than thou", as that wasn't my intention.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

I prefer the term "Grammar Elitist" -- which I've become much less of, after having made friends through social media whose first language isn't English. Even with native English speakers, some sub-vocalize while reading & writing (as I do) so it's quite easy to type one spelling when you MEANT to type the other. Life's too short to rage at homophone misusage. (Of course, as a responsible beta-reader, I would let an author know if their fanfic has grammatical mistakes before they publish.)

Generally, the contractions "they're", "it's" and "you're" are best subvocalized as "they are", "it is" and "you are" to prevent typing the wrong word.

[ariestess]

Grammar Elitist

Oh, I actually like that term! I think I'll have to start using that!

[oudeteron.livejournal.com]

...I really could have done without the word "Nazi" plastered like this over my friends page. Yes, it's a phrase, but as you yourself acknowledge in this post, it's not necessarily a funny one.