The "how-to" on grammar

[Kaevex]

The "How-To" On Grammar

I decided to make this thread to help people who have a hard time with grammar in Layman's terms. No prepositions or anything like that, because I don't want to confuse people who have a hard time with grammar using long and complicated words. Hopefully everyone can benefit from this and use this thread as a reference if they want to make a post with good grammar (which is important if you're posting in a controversial thread). So, I'll start off with the most common errors and end off with the least common grammatical errors. If there is a certain word you aren't sure to use, just press ctrl+f and find the word (because this is a long post). Also, I'm awful with misplacing commas, so there are bound to be misplaced commas in this thread. Just don't post a reply like "Wow you suck at using commas," because I know. ;D Another quick note, American grammar differs from British grammar, so some of the punctuation rules might not be true for everyone. I'll be posting the American grammar rules. I might come back and edit in some British grammar rules, but I don't know British grammar, so that's unlikely.

First of all, it's spelled "grammar", not anything else. If you complain about someone's "grammer", you'll look like an idiot.

Then, than: "Then" is used to describe an event after an event. e.g. "I posted in the Word Link thread, then realized that thread is full of spam." You are saying that you posted in the thread(event 1), then realized the thread is full of spam(event 2). Always remember to use a comma after the word preceding "then". "Than" is used when comparing two objects, as in: "The Earth is bigger than the Moon." It's almost always used in-between two or more nouns. I can't actually think of when it's not used outside of the nouns, so just remember to use it if you're comparing two or more objects.

There, they're, their: "There" is used to describe the location of something, never describe someone using any other of the "there" forms. It's also used when asking someone if something exists. e.g. "I swear I saw a dead body over there," or "Does anyone know if there is a speed limit on this road?" "They're" is a contraction of "they are," so it's used to describe what something or someone is. e.g. "They're making no sense," or "They're speaking French, can someone help me translate?" "Their" is used to describe what someone or something possesses. If you want to tell someone that your friend's dog has rabies, you'd say, "Their dog has rabies." When you use "their," make sure an object is in the same sentence.

Your, you're: "Your" is used to in the same context as "their," except you use "your" when you're speaking to someone directly. e.g. "Your dog has rabies," or "Your house is blue." "You're" is used the same way as "they're," except you use "you're" when you're speaking to someone directly. e.g. "You're always acting like a kid," or "Why is it that you're always acting like a kid?"

To, too: "To" is too hard to explain, since it's hard to explain, so I'll just tell you when to use "too." "Too" is used when you're explaining someone or something has an excess of something, and can be used in place of "also." e.g. "Too much spam is bad for your health,"

His, he's: Not sure how this came up, but I often see people getting the two mixed up. "His" is used to describe what a guy possessed. e.g. "His dog has rabies." "He's" is used to describe what a guy is. e.g. "He's 24 years-old."

A, an: "A" and "an" are the same exact words, with the same exact meaning, but you use "an" when the word following it starts with a vowel(a, e, i, o, u). e.g. "Is there a problem?" or "Did you just eat an alligator?"

Is, are. A lot of people don't know when to use is/are(or maybe just accidentally use the wrong word), and it's easy to know when to use each. For singular objects, use "is," for plural objects, use "are." e.g. "There is a horse in that barn," and "There are horses in that barn." Those are examples of using each correctly. People never use "are" wrongfully, so I'll show you examples of using "is" wrongfully: "There's horses in that barn," or "There's people in that car." NOTE: "It" is an exception for this rule. It would be correct to say, "It's the things like this that bother me." Although, I would suggest saying something along the lines of, "The things like this are what bother me most."

No one: "No one" isn't spelled "noone," nor is it hyphenated. Two words. When you spell it "noone," you get "noon-ee," not "no one."

-ly, -ally: These suffixes are often misused. An easy way to remember which is used, is to look at the end of the word. If it ends with -al or -ic, you use -ally. If it ends with -le or -e, use -ly. e.g. "Accidentally," and "Fiercely." "Ironicly" would be a misuse of this suffix.

-ful: Just to add to suffixes, I'll add this one is. When you are describing something or someone that has much of something, at the end of the word, you add "-ful," with one "L," not two "L"s. e.g. "Powerful," not "Powerfull."

Al-: A prefix that is misspelled all too often. It's "already," not "allready," nor is it "allright." For more formal uses, you should spell it, "all ready." Although, a completely different word/words would be best.

Using a comma, lol, and a question mark: This one is hard to explain, so I'll just jump right to an example: "When are you going to stop doing this lol?" When you're saying something like this, what you want to do is move the "lol" to the front of the sentence, then put the question mark back where it was. The revised sentence will look like this: "Lol, when are you going to stop doing this?" DO NOT get "lol" mixed up with a person's name. e.g. "When are you going to stop doing this, Jake?" is a correct sentence. This isn't a quite infamous mistake, but I still see it every once in a while.

Actually: Spelled with one "C," no more. "Actually" is correct, "acctually" isn't.

Affect, effect: "Affect" is used to describe how something will be changed, "Effect" is used to describe the results of something. They can easily be mixed up by even reading the definitions, so here are some examples: "How will drinking bleach affect my health?" and "What are the effects of drinking bleach?"

Et Cetera: "Et Cetera" is Latin for "and others," or "and so on," or "and so forth." It is abbreviated as "etc.," not "ect." There is also no "X," or "K," so don't pronounce it "eck-setter-uh," because that's just wrong.

Especially: DO NOT pronounce this word as if the "S," is an "X." "Eck-specially," sounds retarded. And is retarded.

-e and -ing: When you want to make a word that ends in "e" in present-tense(by adding "ing"), you must drop the "e" before adding "ing." e.g. "Have" -> "Having," not "haveing." "Use" -> "Using," not "useing."

Would, should, could: Some people use "of," instead of "have," after one of these words when talking about something you forgot to do, or had the option to do. e.g. "I would have kicked your dog," or "I should have kicked your dog," or "I could have drop kicked your firstborn baby in the face."

Who's, whose: When you ask what someone is or has(who's is a contraction of who is/has), you use "who's." When you want to know who something belongs to, you use "whose." e.g. "Who's kicking my baby?!" and "Whose baby is being kicked?"

Quiet, quite: "Quiet" is a synonym of "silent" or "silence". "Quite" means something is full of something. It pretty much means the same as "-ful", but you can't replace "-ful" with "quite." e.g. "Be quiet!" and "That's quite amazing." This one seems more like a typo to me, however.

Congratulations: "Congratulations" does not have a single "D" in it. Nor do you sound cool when you say "congrads" to your friend in WoW who just hit level 80. Same goes with "kindergarten."

Believe: Spelled like, "believe". Not, "belive", or "beleive".

Receive: 'I before E, except after C.' Quite a common rhyme to remember this rule. Only it leaves out another part of the rule. Use "ei" when it's making an "ay" sound, as in "neighbor", or "weigh". e.g. "Neighbor", "weigh", and "sleigh". Looks like whenever it's before a "gh," actually.

Necessary: Only one "C," and two "S"s, not the other way around.

Weird: Spelled "weird," not "wierd."

Much/Many: "Much," is used for singular objects, while "many," is used for plural objects. e.g. "There are many trees in that forest." Notice how "many," is used for plural, while "much," isn't used.

Disappoint(ing): Spelled with one "S" and two "P"s. D i s a p p o i n t. Not "dissapoint," like how I see it often.

Those are the most common word mistakes. Now some punctuation.

Apostrophes: Never use an apostrophe to make something plural. e.g. "I like pie's," would be wrong. Use them to describe something you like's feature. e.g. "I like pie's crusts," They're also used for contractions(can't, don't, won't, etc.).

Colons: Colons are used to mark the beginning of a list. e.g. "Here's what we'll need: _____, _____, _____, and _____." They're also used at the end of a sentence when you want to want to make a quick remark or suggestion. I don't even know what I just said, so here's an example: "I reviewed your essay on dogs with rabies, and I wasn't very impressed: you need to work on your grammar."

Commas: Commas are hard to explain and are way beyond a little how-to like this. Do not overuse them, because that causes more of a headache than no commas. If you have a really long sentence without any commas, read it to yourself in your head, and whenever you'd pause if you were talking to someone, put a comma there.

Semicolons: Semicolons are a mix between a colon and a comma, as you'd imagine, and are mainly used to add a relevance to your sentence, or in place of "and," "but," "yet," etc. e.g. "Your dog has rabies like no other; you should get a vaccination for it."

Parentheses: When using parentheses, there is no need to affix periods or commas to the last word before the closing parenthesis. Keep the ending punctuation outside the parentheses. Make sure if you remove the parentheses and all the content therein, the sentence should still make sense. e.g. "I wouldn't recommend it(it being the blah), but you can go for it." Fail example, I know. I just can't think of anything else. Also, it is nice to(not sure if completely necessary, however it's not something I do for aesthetic purposes) put a space before and after the parenthetical content. One last note, parenthesis is the singular form of parentheses.

That's all I can think of for now. I know, it's a lot to remember, and most people can't remember it all. But if you check which to use often, you'll remember it easier. If there's something I missed, and you want to know, just leave a post here or give me a PM, and I'll answer it for you and most likely add it to this thread. Alternatively, you can just use Google. :P Remember, the punctuation part only applies to American English, not British English. It's also helpful to have a tab open of Dictionary.com in your browser if there's a word you don't know, or if you want to use the thesaurus there to find a synonym or antonym of a word.

Helpful Site:
Common Errors in English

"Hearing impaired" doesn't mean deaf. It just doesn't.

EDIT: Well, I was just reading through this, and noticed the punctuation part basically bisected this post, so I decided to move it where it wasn't awkwardly positioned. I also added a few words.

[Broken Shadows]

I read the first two lines and I was like -Duhhhhhh.-
+rep

[Ruskig]

+rep ;p

"When someone says pls or plz because it shorter than please I say no since its shorter than yes."

[Cepthy]

Clearly a wow guide! +rep anyway

[Smeems]

..How is this a wow guide?
A lot of the time, people flout grammar and spelling rules because of haste and efficiency - the more time you spend typing, the less you will have playing.

Don't get me wrong, most of your post is founded on sound knowledge, but for a WoW guide, I don't really see the relevance.

Also, remember, linguists are describers, not prescribers

[Nemorosa]

..How is this a wow guide?
A lot of the time, people flout grammar and spelling rules because of haste and efficiency - the more time you spend typing, the less you will have playing.

Don't get me wrong, most of your post is founded on sound knowledge, but for a WoW guide, I don't really see the relevance.

Also, remember, linguists are describers, not prescribers

Is it really that important to play just a few micro seconds more?

Not WoW-related, but I'm so tired of some people's grammar. Sure, it doesn't have to be perfect but sometimes it's just retarded so.. +rep

[leetnesspur]

Hi mate,

thanks for this guide. Even i'm german, i knew most of those thinks.
I got my 4th year english in school now, and no i'm no geneous, yet. (spelling?)
:>

+Rep

[iPapa]

u n0b we gud @ gramming alrdy stuped idot

[Mastis]

Back to school I guess, glad I am so self secure I don't need to read

+Rep Ofcourse

Btw, I hate people saying y and assume that's YE!!! For crying out loud it's cool with y = why because you pronounce it the same... but ye??!!!! :confused:

[cyrus101]

For you're description of "a and an", it's slightly incorrect. "An" is used when the following word has a vowel sound at the beginning. Hence the word opossum. It is "a opossum" not "an opossum". Just thought I'd throw that in there. Otherwise great guide for all those grammatically-challenged people :wave:

[corvster]

Apostrophes: Never use an apostrophe to make something plural. e.g. "I like pie's."(wrong) Use them to describe something you like's feature. e.g. "I like pie's crusts," or "I like Kyek's blue balls."

That first example should be "I like pies' crusts" if you're refering to the crusts or multiple pies, or pies in general- possessive forms of nouns ending in S put the apostrophe after that S. To refer to a singular pie would require an article and look like "I like the pie's crust."

[Fragged Rabbit]

OMG Wierd i waz gunna post sumting like dis but I didnt get round to it rofl thats is so aewsume and way kool u got serus l337 sk1LL5!!!!!!!111111!!!!

[rukhand]

Thank you. Although it's not really a WoW-related guide i actually did learn something. I didn't know about the "than". So i'm gonna try to keep that one in mind. I live in the usa but my first language is dutch.

[Dregan]

You forgot the word rouge! It bugs me when people can not spell rogue when the game has been out for 3 years -_-

[kmesa587]

obviously some people use :