There / Their / They're

I am posting this for a friend of mine. About 30 minutes ago, on some Social Networking site, she posted, "they're, their, there


They all have different meanings/uses. Figure it out. It's not hard."

As per usual, I had another post ready to put up, which will now have to wait.

Like Your / You're, this should be fairly obvious to any native speaker of our lovely language. However, for some reason, it isn't.

I will present the rules of these three words.
There = A place / direction.
Their = Possessive
They're = They are

These are pretty simple. Being so similar to my other post, we'll start by covering the bottom two.
Remember that the "re" in "They're" is the word "are" with the "a" removed.

If one can replace "They're" with "They are" in a sentence, well, you have your answer.
It's that simple.

For example: "They're getting the facts right."
That means: "They are getting the facts right."
Alternatively: "Their facts are right."
That means: "The facts belonging to those people are correct."

When one of these is used in place of the other the confusion is unavoidable.

Let's approach the last one.
"There"
It can be used in a multitude of ways. All in all it translates to a direction or place.

For example: "Put it there."
That means: "Put this object in that place."
For example: "There is a person."
That means: "A person exists in that direction."
For example: "YOU THERE!"
That means: "You… person at whom I am looking… in that place / direction."

There are many ways to improve their grammar. They're just going to have to pay attention.

Allude / Elude / Illude

I again apologize for my extended absence. My previously mentioned idea was to start making grammar videos to post here and elsewhere but that fell through. I may do it sometime in the future.

The Cunning Grammarian is back once more.

On to the next subject!

Before my absence I seemed to be focussing on homophones, thus today will be no different.
These three words sound similar and yet they are so different. To compare them would be equivalent to comparing a fish to a table to a book.

Let's define them.

Allude = suggest, call attention to something, hint, mention without discussing, etc.
Elude = to escape, fail to grasp, unable to reach a goal, etc.
Illude = to trick, to deceive, to be cunning, etc.

It can get a little more confusing to the ear when we turn the words into nouns.

Allusion
Elusion
Illusion

However, the words generally retain their definitions, so no extra thought needs to go in.

To use them all in a sentence.
The criminal illuded the audience when she alluded that eluding the police would be easy.

Apologies

I wish to extend my utmost formal and sincere apologies for not updating in such a long time.

I'm thinking over the process that I use for these blogs and I'm considering a change. (Well, my friend is convincing me.)

Either this change will be coming or there will be a slew of entries. (Yes, I have still been writing blog posts, just not publishing them.)

I hope to have something for you dear readers very very soon.

All the best.

Affect / Effect

I've had this entry planned for a while but something kept happening to delay it.
In my last blog post, Accept and Except, I alluded to today's entry.
In fact, after last week's entry, this subject was requested.
After the long wait here it is, "Affect" versus "Effect".

This one often seems to confuse the pants off of people. (See blog entry "Literally" to realize I'm being figurative.)
If you're chatting with me, and you get this one wrong, I will most likely not point it out. However, the difference should be known.

Both affect and effect, generally have the same definition. Causing a change, or a consequence.
"Cunning Grammarian, what's the difference?"
Well, dear reader, the difference is one is a noun and the other a verb.

Affect is the verb.
Effect is the noun.

How can you tell the difference easily? "The" is the answer. If you can put "The" in front of the word properly, then it is "effect". You can remember it because "The" ends in "E" and "effect" starts with an "E".

The effect of bowling in slippers is that you may slide all over the lane.
Bowling in slippers affects how you move; consequently, you may slide all over the lane.

That is how effect will affect your writing.

(In psychology it seems that "affect" can also be used as a noun, but this is not in typical day to day use.)

Accept / Except

Today, at 3:30 am, whilst chatting with an acquaintance of mine, he made a mistake and I ignored it; upon reflection, I'd now like to weep.
The message was as follows:
"i wanna go to the party accept i gotta babysit my brother"
Emotionally, this rips apart my insides. Though, the inverse mistake is just as bad, the following was a different conversation, 15 minutes later:
"I was excepted to the English program at York"
This is NO joke, someone was "excepted" (read: accepted) to work toward her MA in English.

Accept and Except are very different words. They share no relation, and thus, unlike my upcoming entry, should never be confused. (You'll have to check back in a few days to find out.)

Accept = To acquiesce, to give an affirmative answer, to consent, to be given permission, to believe, etc.
Except =  To exclude, to omit, but, etc.

A quick way to remember the difference is to use the letter "X". One uses "X", as in "eXcept", to cross out an item.

To fix the above examples: (Taking some grammarian liberties.)
"I want to go to the party, except I must babysit my brother."
and
"I was thrown out of the English MA program at York."
Just kidding…
"I was accepted to the English program at York"

On top of it all, accept that except, should never end a sentence.
(…except in rare situations… Except is a typically a preposition; it can also be a conjunction and archaically it is a verb. However, "except" still should never end a sentence.)

Itch / Scratch

My apologies for such a delay in posting an entry; I've been a bit under the weather.

The time is currently 3:48 in the morning and I am having trouble sleeping. When this happens I tend to watch videos; tonight I chose to watch a comedian. I am 2:24 into the act, including the introduction, and I am infuriated in a manner that deserves a blog entry.

The comedian has just described a man in an airport who, "was so outta shape… he was like trying to itch his back and he couldn't reach it…"

This is just wrong, so very very wrong. It is so wrong, that if it were to be any more wrong, it would cause a haemorrhage in my brain.

Let us define the two words in question, shall we?

Itch = a discomfort or irritation to the skin, a restless or great desire, etc.
Scratch = to relieve said itch, to rub the skin, to scrape, writing on a surface, etc.

Clearing this up once and for all.

An itch is what you have when your skin is irritated.
A scratch is what you do to relieve the itch.

If you want to itch yourself, go to a magic or novelty store, buy some itching powder and rub it all over your body.

Then, when you want to get rid of it, SCRATCH yourself. (Truth to be told, that would most likely make it worse; instead of scratching, get some sort of anti-itch cream.)

Don't forget, when you're itching for relief, it's a scratch not an itch.

Literally

"Literally" is a word that is very often misused.

Here are a few examples:
"I literally died when she told me about what I did at the party."
or
"When he jumped out from behind the desk, I flew fifteen feet into the air, literally"
or
"Man, that girl literally knocked my socks off"


You did not "literally" die, when something happened. If you had, you'd not be telling the story.
You did not "literally" fly fifteen feet into the air when someone scared you. If you had, you'd likely be in the hospital or dead.
You did not "literally" get your socks knocked off. If you had… well, that would be awesome.

The word "literally" is to be used when something "LITERALLY" happens. If you'd like to be figurative, then just DROP the word. "I died when that happened." "I flew fifteen feet into the air." "That knocked my socks off."
Your continued incorrect use of this word may literally drive me to insanity. Though, it's more likely that a car will literally drive me somewhere, and your use of this term will just anger me further.

Right / Write / Wright / Rite

This entry will be fairly short, mainly because I NEVER thought I'd have to explain this one.
I was on a social networking website the other day and an acquaintance wrote, "I didn't wright that comment."
My jaw literally dropped… hanging open in shock.

Write = To compose, to form words, to express or communicate using acknowledged shapes, etc.
As in: To write on a piece of paper.

Right = Proper, Correct, legal claim to a title, the opposite of left, etc.
As in: To be right about something in an argument.

Wright = a worker or builder, attached to words to form a "creator" of said other word (e.g. playwright), or Orville and Wilbur "creators" of the first plane.
As in: The playwright composed a sonnet.

Rite = Religious act, any established ceremony.
As in: Spring cleaning is almost a rite of passage.

Remember the writing rite is every playwright's right.

Your / You're

I had a whole plan of what the next few blog entries would be; however, I received an email that changed this objective. (The subject line of said email will be included in my examples below.)

The subject of this blog was going to be covered in a few weeks, and it would have been grouped with a few other rules. This shall be no longer.

I will present one that should be obvious to all, but for some reason it's not.
Your = Possessive
You're = You are

This is really simple and should never ever be confused. The best way to remember it is that the "re" in "you're" is the word "are" with the "a" cut off.

If one can replace the word in the sentence with "you are" then use "you're"… it's as easy as that.

For example: "You're late for dinner."
That means, "You are late for dinner."
Alternatively, "Your dinner is on the table."
That means "The dinner that belongs to you is on the table."

When one says "your" in place of "you're" the confusion is astronomical.
For example, "I believe your offended."
My response would be, "You believe my offended?"

Conversely, "I have taken you're phone."
My response would be, "You have taken I am phone?"

Finally, "This dog is you'res"
My response would be, "Go away, and read a grammar textbook."
("You'res" is NEVER a word)

You're really going to have to learn your grammar.

Y

Today's post isn't something that drives me crazy; it's something that came up as a question via text message last week. In my friend's honour, I decided I would make a post about our lovely friend, the letter "Y".

"In what case is Y a vowel?" (To quote my friend's message)

The quickest and simplest answer to figuring this out is, "If there are no other vowels around it, 'Y' becomes a vowel."
The remaining rule would be "when it sounds like a vowel, it is a vowel."

Consider the sound the letter makes. When it sounds like an "ee" or a long "i" it is a vowel. When it is a sharp sound, or it precedes or proceeds a long vowel sound, it is a consonant.

Examples of both:
Vowel because no other vowels are present: Myth or Why
Vowel because of sound: Betty
Consonant: Yes, Yell, Hurray

Lastly, while the word "hurray" almost sounds like the "Y" is making the "ee" sound, it is the long "a" that is making that sound, the "Y" is sharp.

That would be the "Why of Y"... so to speak.

Since When

When did people begin to use this one? It very nearly drives me to climb a brick wall using my bare hands as anchors.

"Since when did that happen?"
"Since when did you get sick?"
"Since when is it proper to use since when?"

When considering that question, that terribly malformed question, the meaning can be one of two things.
1) "How long has this been going on?" Meaning, the person would like a specific amount of time.
However, the following, I find, is the more likely meaning.
2) "When"

If one is asking for a specific amount of time, "Since when did you get sick?" should be phrased as, "How long ago did you get sick?" or something along those lines.

If one is asking "When?", please for the love of all that is holy, just drop the "Since".
One of the reasons people speak incorrectly is due to laziness, in this scenario be lazy, drop that extra word!