The Sound of Words is Confusing
Hi Kiddies,
I hope you're enjoying a glorious summer filled with pool parties and backyard barbecues. It's the season to get outside in the fresh air. Now, I get it that to some of you office rats the thought of fresh air and any sort of aerobic exercise might make you nauseated...
So much for my intro. Let's roll right into today's topic. You, being such smarty pants may have already guessed it: Simple word mistakes that make you look less than the professional you are. I'm talking about the really simple ones I taught my 4th and 5th graders back at St. Dom's so many years ago. I get emails from $600 an hour lawyers with these errors. I edit book manuscripts from best selling authors who really should know better. Of course they do. And so do you. So let's just take this summer moment to remind ourselves:
- Your and you're: This one is a favorite of the bloggers, bless their little unedited hearts. Your is a possessive pronoun. It just sounds the same as you're. But they're not anything alike. Use your like this: Your penance... Your inquisition... On the other hand, you're is a contraction standing for you are. Use it like this: You're going to Mass... You're wasting the sacramental wine...(used on Father Flannigan last night after Vespers, as a matter of fact).
- Their and there: Again, confusion of different words sounding the same. There refers to a place (...let's go there...). It can also be a pronoun: ...there is hope for Flannigan yet. Not.
Their is a plural possessive pronoun. It refers to two or more people's things: ...their aspirations...or (my personal favorite), their collective guilt. If you're talking about two or more people and something they possess, use their.
Incidentally, most of these word confusions result more from typos rather than from any real lack of knowledge. Still, they can make you look like a rookie.
- Its and it's: Use its when referring to a noun's possession. Father Flannigan's homily lost its mojo. It's is simply a contraction for it is.
- Nauseous vs. nauseated: A sickly use of words, if you ask me. Everyone misses this. Nauseous means that something actually causes a feeling of sickness. For example: The smell in the Roman catacombs is nauseous.
Nauseated refers to the sensation of sickness. Another example: Sister Marie Baptiste's erratic rowing nauseated me. See the subtle diff? In this case it was the rowing that actually caused me to be nauseated. A fine point, to be sure. Yet that is what separates the good impression a professional makes from the rest.
Until next time, I'm Mary Pat for Writers Resource Group. Enjoy the rest of your glorious summer.
--SMP
