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Your using the wrong word.
3

Your using the wrong word.

Your using the wrong word.

(OP)
Enough said?

RE: Your using the wrong word.

I know, it is very common, A lot of people spell it how it sounds ... especially when English isn't their primary language.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP1.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

RE: Your using the wrong word.

Is their a difference, or is they're not?

I wood bet that these mistakes are made more often then knot by native english speakers.

RE: Your using the wrong word.


I've been embarrassed more than once by bad typing and spellcheck.

RE: Your using the wrong word.

Alright, its not that big a deal

Hg
(cringing just to joke about it)

RE: Your using the wrong word.

Certainly, many native english speakers spell poorly, confuse words, and so forth.
A great essay/article is here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27074-2005Feb15

It addresses both the complexity and the fact that not all brains function in quite the same way.

Nevertheless, if we pay attention to what we write, and compare it to known references (constant tuning/improvement) the problem is at least manageable.

Remember: thou shalt proofread thine work prior to submission!

cheers
Jay

Jay Maechtlen

RE: Your using the wrong word.

For some reason the use of "then" in place of "than" is particularly bothersome to me.  I see it all over the web in places where I would expect the writer to know better, not just in junior high schoolers' blogs.

Your vs. you're
There vs. their

If your not sure, look it up in that their dictionary.  Get someone to proofread it for you.  Read it one word at a time starting with the last word in the report.  ESL's(English = Second Language) have a better chance of learning good habits than some whose bad habits are ingrained.

Another one that comes up often in engineering is supersede.  Supercede does not really exist.

Supersede is from the Latin sedere, to sit.  The confusion is natural, since cedere is also a Latin word, but it means to yield.  Supersede and supercede actually mean the opposite, if supercede is conceded to exist.  But the thing doing the superseding is "sitting over" the thing superseded.  You would have to say that the thing superseded is superceding to the other.

RE: Your using the wrong word.

Quote (weh3):

If your not sure, look it up in that their dictionary.
I think you meant to use you're... sorry, I couldn't resist.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
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RE: Your using the wrong word.

weh3,

"If your not sure, look it up in that their dictionary..."

Don't you mean, "If you're not sure..."?

Just pickin' the picky.

Proof reading is great, but my brain knows what I meant to say. I would need to take a break and then proof read it.

Rerig

RE: Your using the wrong word.

MadMango,

You're just too quick on the draw, for me, partner.
Must be slowing down in my old age!

Rerig

RE: Your using the wrong word.

You both caught the "your" but missed the "their"!

RE: Your using the wrong word.

I should have written

<irony>
If your not sure, look it up in that their dictionary.
<\irony>

But then, humor lies in not being too obvious.  As the title of a recent Dilbert book points out, "it's not funny if I have to explain it".

For the more plainspoken:
If you're not sure about usage or spelling, look it up in your dictionary.  I use the American Heritage dictionary.

Wm

RE: Your using the wrong word.

Are you shore about that?

RE: Your using the wrong word.

It reminds me of Inigo Montoya's line in the "Princess Bride" atop the cliffs of despair, addressed to the character Vizzini, that keeps saying "Inconceivable!".  The line was, "You keep using that word.  I do not think that it means what you think it means". (spoken with a bad Spanish accent)

The coworker that I said that to (complete with accent) must not have seen the movie...

Dave

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