TheVille

In order to help keep the Ville the best gaming community out there, I have compiled a brief, non-comprehensive list of commonly misspelled terms, grammatical confusions, and two-word phrases which are frequently turned into single, horribly incorrect words. This is a guide that I think the entire Internet needs, but for now we get to keep it for ourselves and thus increase our own linguistic skills. Keep informed and help make the Internet a more intelligent place!


I. Commonly Misspelled Words
A few of the words which are most frequently misspelled online, presented with their proper spellings.

Definite / Definitely / Definitive
Necessary / Necessarily
Similar / Similarly
Different / Differently / Difference
Grammar (I find this one extremely ironic)


II. Common Grammatical Confusions
Similar-sounding words which are frequently used in place of one another despite not being interchangeable, plus the proper usage of each.

Then: used to denote something taking place at a later point in time than something else.
"Kill the Medic, then attack the Heavy."

Than: used when comparing two things.
"My spoon is larger than my cereal bowl!"

To: indicates a location, direction, etc. towards which something is moving.
"We're going to the enemy base."
"We've moved the event to next week."

Too: "in addition" - indicates adding to something.
"I'm going to the enemy base too."
"That Soldier is dead. And that Scout too."

Two: a number between one and three.
"There are two teams in Team Fortress."


And everyone's favorites:

Your: used to indicate possession.
"This is your knife embedded in my spine, is it not?"

You're: contraction of "you are."
"You're going to have to help me, as I have no idea what I am doing."

Its: used to indicate possession. This is the only word I can think of off the top of my head where an apostrophe is specifically excluded to indicate possession.
"I hear you killed the monster. Is this its severed head?"

It's: contraction of "it is."
"It's capable of turning you into stone if you look at it for too long, so be careful."


III. Fake words made up of what should be two-word phrases
"Words" which are frequently used online, yet are only properly written as two words.

"a lot"
"of course"
"in fact"
"on top"
"any way" (when used in the context of "is there any way this could work?" ["are there any conditions under which this could work"] as opposed to "I was going to do that anyway" ["I was going to do that regardless of circumstance X"])
"map pack" (less common, but a major pet peeve of mine)


Feel free to add your own as this is far from a comprehensive list. If even one person's spelling and grammar is in any way improved by this list, then it has accomplished its mission.

The one that irritates me is "I could care less." Look at the phrase: it literally means "I actually do care to some extent." It's as if people willfully shut off all critical thinking processes when they say this.

CoyoteCreed wrote:The one that irritates me is "I could care less." Look at the phrase: it literally means "I actually do care to some extent." It's as if people willfully shut off all critical thinking processes when they say this.

Can't believe I forgot this one. I want to correct people whenever I hear it.

Here's another big one:

Would Have / Could Have / Should Have: common words that are almost always incorrectly written as "would of / could of / should of." I believe this stems from the fact that they are usually spoken as contractions - "Would've / Could've / Should've" - leading to confusion when someone wants to write them out as text.

good = adjective

well = adverb

Will T. wrote:In order to help keep the Ville the best gaming community out there, I have compiled a brief, non-comprehensive list of commonly misspelled terms, grammatical confusions, and two-word phrases which are frequently turned into single, horribly incorrect words. This is a guide that I think the entire Internet needs, but for now we get to keep it for ourselves and thus increase our own linguistic skills. Keep informed and help make the Internet a more intelligent place!


I. Commonly Misspelled Words
A few of the words which are most frequently misspelled online, presented with their proper spellings.

Definite / Definitely / Definitive
Necessary / Necessarily
Similar / Similarly
Different / Differently / Difference
Grammar (I find this one extremely ironic)


II. Common Grammatical Confusions
Similar-sounding words which are frequently used in place of one another despite not being interchangeable, plus the proper usage of each.

Then: used to denote something taking place at a later point in time than something else.
"Kill the Medic, then attack the Heavy."

Than: used when comparing two things.
"My spoon is larger than my cereal bowl!"

To: indicates a location, direction, etc. towards which something is moving.
"We're going to the enemy base."
"We've moved the event to next week."

Too: "in addition" - indicates adding to something.
"I'm going to the enemy base too."
"That Soldier is dead. And that Scout too."

Two: a number between one and three.
"There are two teams in Team Fortress."


And everyone's favorites:

Your: used to indicate possession.
"This is your knife embedded in my spine, is it not?"

You're: contraction of "you are."
"You're going to have to help me, as I have no idea what I am doing."

Its: used to indicate possession. This is the only word I can think of off the top of my head where an apostrophe is specifically excluded to indicate possession.
"I hear you killed the monster. Is this its severed head?"

It's: contraction of "it is."
"It's capable of turning you into stone if you look at it for too long, so be careful."


III. Fake words made up of what should be two-word phrases
"Words" which are frequently used online, yet are only properly written as two words.

"a lot"
"of course"
"in fact"
"on top"
"any way" (when used in the context of "is there any way this could work?" ["are there any conditions under which this could work"] as opposed to "I was going to do that anyway" ["I was going to do that regardless of circumstance X"])
"map pack" (less common, but a major pet peeve of mine)


Feel free to add your own as this is far from a comprehensive list. If even one person's spelling and grammar is in any way improved by this list, then it has accomplished its mission.

"the" in "the Ville" needs to be capitalized. It is part of a proper name.

All of this grammar is.

your crazy will! alot of people should of read this to understand gammer. its just silly to!

CoyoteCreed wrote:The one that irritates me is "I could care less." Look at the phrase: it literally means "I actually do care to some extent." It's as if people willfully shut off all critical thinking processes when they say this.

Okay, okay. I know there is a 'problem' with this phrase, but it isn't really something I would consider grammatical. You made it sound like they do care, but if you say "I could care less" it is a perfectly valid point. While they may mean "I couldn't care less" meaning not at all there is very little difference between looking at this phrase in a sense of caring very little for something and not caring at all. "I could care less" is still a valid way of saying "I don't care". Even if it is no more than ten percent or so of caring. There still is very little care to give.

The amount in which I care for the topic of grammar is less than ideal, but I could care less.

I use an error correction algorithm that makes all examples of grammar correction listed above obsolete. I think most people have similar algorithms in their language parsing system.

The "good" and "well" mix-ups bother me the most because I had a teacher who was very big on this issue. She would correct things like that mid-sentence, so I learned quickly to use "good" and "well" in the right places. It was annoying at first, but I picked up some good habits in the end.

Stevo wrote:I use an error correction algorithm that makes all examples of grammar correction listed above obsolete. I think most people have similar algorithms in their language parsing system.

Is that built into your central stove processing unit?

ucanttellmewut2do

CoyoteCreed wrote:The one that irritates me is "I could care less." Look at the phrase: it literally means "I actually do care to some extent." It's as if people willfully shut off all critical thinking processes when they say this.

I could care less about your annoyance.

GOTTA GO FATUS CUMON STEP IT UP

Vi Deo wrote:

CoyoteCreed wrote:The one that irritates me is "I could care less." Look at the phrase: it literally means "I actually do care to some extent." It's as if people willfully shut off all critical thinking processes when they say this.

Okay, okay. I know there is a 'problem' with this phrase, but it isn't really something I would consider grammatical. You made it sound like they do care, but if you say "I could care less" it is a perfectly valid point. While they may mean "I couldn't care less" meaning not at all there is very little difference between looking at this phrase in a sense of caring very little for something and not caring at all. "I could care less" is still a valid way of saying "I don't care". Even if it is no more than ten percent or so of caring. There still is very little care to give.

The amount in which I care for the topic of grammar is less than ideal, but I could care less.

Pretty much this, there's a right way to use I could care less with a heavy emphasis on the 'could', implying you're accepting the possibility there's a lower state of caring, but you're not going to bother considering it.