The Elements of Style calls these the “Elementary Rules of Usage.” These are common errors you see literally everywhere on the internet. I’ve listed the ones from the Elements of style in my own words and created some examples for each. I most commonly see. I hope they help as a reference for you in this series.
Form the possessive singular noun by adding ’s
The car’s headlight was out. Angela’s bike got a flat tire.
A very common error is mistaking it’s for its. Its is a possessive pronoun whereas it’s is a contraction combining it and is.
The dog was sleepy as evidenced by its droopy eyes.
It’s a great thing to be a blogger.
Another very common error is in the homophones: there, their, and they’re.
there=a place, a location. I looked all over there for my keys.
their=possessive pronoun for them, they. They forgot their scruples and bought Amway.
they’re=contraction of the words they and are. They’re great friends and always have been.
Finally, another homophone common error is the use of to, two, and too.
to=preposition, direction. The arrow points to the highway.
two=number
too=a degree of intensity. That song was too loud.
This ends the basics of usage for bloggers. What other rules of usage do you know of that are commonly broken on blogs?
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9 Comments
Great series Damien! I’ll be poping in more to look at it (: Thanks!
katelynjanes last blog post..Projects and Wants
Well, you are welcome. Wait … the well and wel sound a little redundant … hmmm, now that I am doing this series I think I’ll be a basketcase about my writing. Wait … I always was huh? ;) … you know that. I hope you enjoy the series. I’m using a great book to get ideas each post.
I consider myself a fairly proficient writer, I have taking creative writing courses and do technical and procedural documentation for my job. I even now still use ’s inappropriately sometimes and have to catch myself, we have become far to reliant on spell checking software which doesn’t catch all grammar errors.
Dragon Bloggers last blog post..Some if my favorite photos taken with Canon Digital Rebel XT
Yeah. I go hot and cold on spell check. The problem is the homonyms and multiple meaning words. I think I’ve tried grammar check like once years before I ever began college and it was disastrous. Best way is to learn the basics. Good comment.
Aww, that really sucks about the PR! You’ll get up there again soon!
So when you say 4325/4000 views for PFTFF, does that mean you received 4325 views this month on that blog?
katelynjanes last blog post..Geeks Unite
Correct Katelyn. I use Google Analytics to get my data.
Dude, your #’s are fantastic, sorry to hear about your Google PR dropping, it may take only a month or so to go back up.
A – 4325/4000
Means your goal was 4000 and you had 4325 unique visits this month right, not page views?
Man, I would give my left arm to bring in $400.00 for one of my blogs, so far my primary blog has just brought in $57.50, but it is only the end of my first month, so I shouldn’t complain too much.
Dragon Bloggers last blog post..Overview On How Dragon Blogger Leverages Entrecard
That’s an impressive visitor count apparently but if you look back at some other CAN posts you’ll see it is right in line with what Postcards has been getting:
June 2008: 2554
July 2008: 4504
August 2008: 3376
I think it’s quite impressive! Making money blogging is not my personal thing, but I think $400 a month is incredible!
Jessica The Rock Chicks last blog post..Keep The Faith
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