Micheal’s rantings, ravings, and general banter

I recently came across a group on Facebook that encourages proper grammar. Great! Well, one of the admins of that group linked to her blog, so I decided to follow it, being the curious person that I am. There are some good posts, so check it out yourself. The post in question is here.

Now for the fun part. One of the comments on her blog made by a visitor made the mistake of confusing peaked and piqued. Yes, I realize it was actually the person who commented that made the mistake, but I like referring to inanimate objects as animate objects. For those who aren’t sure, piqued is used when you’ve raised someone’s interest, for example. “You piqued my curiosity.” Peaked on the other hand is suggesting reaching a plateau or reaching the end of something. “His energy levels peaked before he had to stop running.” It is a common mistake and not something that would really get me to dedicate a blog post, but this is on a blog that encourages proper grammar, and hopefully, proper spelling.

Now, let me say that I am by no means perfect and I make mistakes all the time. However, this time it just bugged me. So what’s with the subject, you ask? Mixing up words, of course!

Haven’t you ever seen someone use loose when describing someone losing something? “You can use this software without loosing your changes.” Or their in place of there? “Their, in the woods.” Or “There campfire went out.”

How about using the wrong it’s? Many people make the mistake of thinking that all apostrophes show possession. The English language is funny like that. There are words, like its, that show possession without the apostrophe. The problem? This is something learned in elementary school. Or should have been. Apostrophes also show, as I’ve explained before, contractions. It’s is actually it is. Its, however, shows possession. “Its tail came off to fool predators.

Though not strictly related to this post, next is using me at the beginning of a sentence. I see this more amongst the British, but Americans do it too. “Me arm is hurting.” No! That’s wrong! The correct way to say it is “My arm is hurting.” Subject-verb agreement and all. Update: I was just informed by a friend in the UK that putting me in front of a sentence is no longer acceptable.

And lastly is mixing up first-person with third-person. I’m tossing this in because I didn’t think I could get a long enough post out of it by its lonesome. Facebook, Myspace, and others allow users to update status messages. These types of messages are always third-person. And yet, people quite often think they belong in first-person.

Let me explain. “Micheal is going to pick up his car this evening.” That’s third-person. I’m referring to myself as if I were a separate speaker. Sounds strange, I know, but that is what is happening. If someone else were talking about you, they would use the third-person to refer to you. However, I see something like this quite often. Too often. “Micheal is going to pick up my car this evening.” Does that even sound right? No it doesn’t.