Friday, March 2, 2007

This Bugs Me...#2

O.K. on to the next thing that scratches my blackboard, the proper use of language. Now there are many words that are used incorrectly, but today I am going to talk about the two that are most annoying to me. First the word 'seen'. How many times have you heard an intelligent looking and otherwise, sounding person suddenly ruin it by using 'seen' improperly? As in: "I seen her come in the room." Oh! My! That is just not right. It's basic grammar. Did these folks never go to school? And it just SOUNDS wrong, even if you do not know grammar rules. I am constantly surprised by the people who say it, too. Don't they have someone in their life who will tell them that is wrong? Obviously not. Because I believe most people would want to speak correctly, if they knew they were wrong. So here is the correct usage:
PRESENT: "I SEE her come in."
PAST: "I SAW her come in."
FUTURE: "I WILL SEE her come in."
PRESENT PERFECT: "I HAVE SEEN her come in."
PAST PERFECT: "I HAD SEEN her come in."
FUTURE PERFECT: "I WILL HAVE SEEN her come in.

BUT NEVER: "I seen her come in." WRONG...WRONG...WRONG !!!!!

Now...the second one is 'YOUR' and 'YOU'RE'. 'YOUR' is a possessive pronoun. "YOU'RE is the contraction for "you are'. "YOU'RE so silly," means "YOU ARE so silly". "YOUR jokes are funny," means "the jokes that YOU told are so funny." The way I see this misused the most is on an invitation or sign inviting someone to attend. Such as: "YOUR invited to the party." NO! NO! NO! "YOU'RE invited to the party." It is amazing where I have seen this used incorrectly. In newspapers, on public billboards, in magazines. Someone is not proofreading. Any time you can substitute 'YOU ARE'...you should use 'YOU'RE.'

Allright...I feel better. Now, if all offenders will please clean up YOUR act, I and millions of other sesitive ears, will be grateful. I could go on and talk about 'LAY,LIE', 'SIT,SET', or 'GOOD,WELL'. But not today. I've ranted enough.
Thank you very much.

1 comment:

Dawn said...

I came over from Barb's place to tell you that there are LOTS of us older bloggers out there and we have a great time connecting every day or so!

As for today's blog, my pettest of all peeves (I know that's not correct), is the misuse of its and it's. ARGGHHHH!! It's an epidemic!

Come on over and visit. I don't have a party up, but we can get a bit acquainted.