Your vs. You're vs Yore

[Angrboda]

Allow me to put to rest the notion that this is a knowledge problem.

While it is indeed true that my skills with language and writing are some of my weaker skills, I'm nobody's slouch. I was teacher's pet of more English teachers than I can count on one hand. (And that's not just because I only have one finger — it's a figure of speech, damnit!) When I graduated high school, I had impeccable spelling and grammar, and a vocabulary that frequently employed words of eight or more syllables. When I started BBS'ing, I noticed my grammatical skills starting to slip over time. The real eye opener was when I started hanging out on IRC and I noticed these grammatical errors start to blossom like flowers on the chin of the morning. And it wasn't because I had been sipping cocktails of mercury and lead paint chips, either. It's something about these interactive media that results in an increase in certain types of grammatical errors. And if you'll notice, the bulk of those which so-called grammar Nazis pick up on are all homophones — parts of speech that are spelled differently but sound the same. You don't notice these self-appointed policeman of perfection nattering on about the improper use of who/whom, which/that, and dangling participles. It's all the low hanging fruit, the mistakes that most people make. I have a rudimentary theory, but it's just barely that. I have the suspicion that the interactive, social and so-to-speak "conversational" nature of this type of activity uses the centers of the brain associated with verbal speech and sound more than other types of written discourse do, or in a different way. That's why I think the most common errors in electronic communication are homophones (and notice that spelling errors can also be homophonic in character as well).

I don't have any evidence for my specific hypothesis, but there it is.


(Notice how "poinh!" isn't as funny unless you imagine the sound in your head.)