Remember your grade-school grammar lessons? No? Then come right in!

Recently, there was an article released in the Times that had many glaring grammatical and punctuation errors, which angered, irritated, agitated, and just plain annoyed many people. With the establishment of the Internet in the mass media, this trend of the written English language's deterioration will only continue, unless something is done.

Chronic appearances of misspellings and incorrect punctuation are omnipresent, whether they are on TV, outdoor signs, or even in schools. This grammar freak has taken it upon herself to shine a little enlightenment into the lives of Whyville, with these basic grammar/spelling rules and regulations that are most often ignored on the Internet. (More installments are to come if there is enough interest; higher-level grammar rules to follow, hopefully. =D)

1. Your vs. You're

a. Your = belonging to the second person you; possessive form
b. You're = you are; contraction

a. You're welcome.
b. Your welcome is well-received.

2. There/their/they're (Never, ever mix these up.)

a. There = a place that is not here; somewhere in the distance
b. Their = belonging to the third person them; possessive form
c. They're = they are; contraction

a. The house is right there.
b. Their house is right here.
c. They're the owners of that house.

3. Wear/where/were (Don't mix these, either.)

a. Wear = to put on clothing; verb
b. Where = at or in what place; adverb; In a place in which; conjunction; the place or occasion; noun
c. Were = past tense form of "to be"; verb

a. I like to wear jeans in the summer.
b. Where do you go during the summer?
OR
He likes to go to Florida, where it is always sunny.
OR
I know when the party is, but not where it is.
c. Were you aware that summer had begun?

4. Its vs. it's

a. Its = belonging to it; possessive form
b. It's = it is; contraction

a. Every dog has its day.
b. It's today that is my dog's day.

In the world of grammar, it is not only punctuation and correct verb usage that matters, but spelling as well. Listed below is a compilation of many of the more misspelled words on the Internet (this list uses the American spellings of words; the British can apply their rules accordingly):

A lot (Always two words!)
accept/except (Rule for usage to come later)
accidentally (Never "accidently")
A.M./P.M. (These are always capitalized, and, if possible, written in a smaller font)
answer
awesome
calendar
column
committee
creator
criticize
definitely
embarrass
foreign
forty (Although related to the number "four" it is never spelled "fourty")
friend
gauge
harass
height (Never "heighth")
independent
lying (It is never spelled "lieing")
misspell
neighborhood
principal/principle (Rule to come later)
psych (Not "sike"!)
rhyme
rhythm
science
Tuesday
until
vacuum
weather/whether (Big rule on "whether" hopefully shall be explored later)
Wednesday
weird
width

For these, remember "I before E, except after C")

Brief
Chief
Believe
Receive
Perceive
Conceive

Hopefully, Whyville shall be seeing more of this reporter/grammar freak, in the Whyville Times. To the true lovers of language, feel free to drop a y-mail anytime about the awe-inspiring rhetoric of English.

Semper fi to the grammatical cause!
*furiously mutters to self about subjunctive case*
Ledyba