How to Make your Blog Posts more Appalling. A Grammatical Guide

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Today I want to have a little bit of fun but at the same time provide a little lesson on the importance of Grammar. Notice I didn’t say good grammar, because I don’t necessarily think good grammar is that important so long as you can inject personality into your writing. I know of many bloggers who make a tonne of grammatical mistakes, but because they have a style that is all their own and they provide genuine value the grammar is not a problem. But there are certain mistakes you don’t want to make! So let’s take a look at 7 reasons why you should ALWAYS reread your posts before you publish them. Why 7, because it seems to be all the rage online (ever noticed that?) but in all honesty I have a memory like a goldfish so I will probably forget how many by the time I hit reason 5 so forget I said any number at all in fact and just read it.

so… A variable number of reasons Why you need to read and reread your posts before you publish them.

The Spell Checker has no idea what you’re talking about

I have read many a blog post that made me feel more like a spell checker than a human, I certainly had no idea what the blogger was on about! Moral: Don’t rely on your spellchecker. The spell checker checks for spelling mistakes, and it doesn’t even do that right!  Well it does but I’m a bit sensitive and have been known to yell at my computer when it underlines ‘colour’ for example, or ‘Realisation’. You know – proper spelling. OK so I digress, but the perfect example of why the spell checker has no idea what you are talking about and why you CANNOT rely on it, if you have not already figured, is the Title of this post!
It’s not just the words that take on new meanings when they are misspelled; it’s the entire context in which sentences can be structured. Sometimes you may write something that seems OK at the time, but only when you come back and read it within the context of the whole article do you realise that perhaps you could have phrased that better. Here is a couple of humorous examples:

• “Toilet out of order, please use floor below.”
• “Automatic washing machines. Please remove all your clothes when the light goes out.”
• “Elephants Please Stay In Your Car.” A warning at a safari park.
• “Don’t let worries kill you, let the church help.”
• ‘Slow Children Crossing’
• ‘For restrooms, go back toward your behind’

All these Grammatical rules are Gay

It’s not the rules so much that are the trouble, it’s those words that sound the same but mean different things. And they’re not gay, they’re Homonyms.
I myself have made many a mistake with these dastardly Homonyms because it is so easy to just write and forget the context the word is supposed to be in. (I found this out because my Mum mentioned that I was making these grammatical errors occasionally – and being the optimist that I am I turned around and said ‘Wow, that’s awesome! I can’t believe you’re reading my blog!)
To stop you making the most common mistakes that I see, here are some good ways to remember what to use and when:

• It’s and Its – I see this error all the time and it’s the easiest one to remedy. It’s means it is, so say the sentence with the full it is. If that sentence sounds weird then you know not to use it
• There, They’re, Their – No I am not trying to calm you or make you feel better, I am simply pointing that there is a difference. Their means they own it (their car) and the best way to not mistake the other two is like above, They’re means They Are, so say the full meaning in the sentence and if it sounds out then don’t use it
• Your and You’re – Ok by now I already know what I am going to say. Your means something is yours where as You’re is short for You Are. Again, to make sure you don’t use them in the wrong context simply say the full meaning in the sentence and if it makes sense, Awesome!

Still don’t understand? Allow me to exclaim!

OK so the first thing I did then was check that I was not a culprit of over emphasising – but seriously my fellow bloggers, is it really necessary to add an exclamation mark to the end of every sentence?!! (Just for the record, that was definitely appropriate use of emphasis) Sometimes I have no choice but to draw the conclusion that their period button is broken and the exclamation mark was the closest thing they could find to replace it. Or maybe they are just really excited, by everything…all the time. Whatever the case may be just keep in mind that sometimes it is the words that make the point and there is no need to make the reader sound like they are calling a horse race as they read! Your! Post!

It’s the biggest button for godsake!

I apologise for the blasphemy, but if you are truly offended then you also have the capacity to forgive, so …thank you. Moving on.
How often am I reading a post and I notice words tied together with no spaces between them. I have no idea how the spell check doesn’t pick this up but how hard is it to go and fix that? It’s the biggest button on the keyboard and yet the post goes out unchanged and I havetotryandmakesenseofthis. This is not really a problem because unless you learnt to read last week, this isn’t going to challenge your thought processes too much.
However, the reason this made the list is because forgetting to add spaces or changing the positioning of them can have dire consequences. It’s not so bad if you own a Hungry Jacks and they forget the space in the middle, but when you own a clothing store called Kids exchange it becomes REALLY important that that space is in the right spot. J

Your Lingo is your friend

Throughout the course of editing your post be sure to keep your own style and lingo flowing. Your style is not just the niche you write in or the style in which you write, it is the language you write in and the words you use that are geo specific. I never even thought about this and it would not have made this list if I had not chanced upon a comment in a thread somewhere (I can’t remember now) where Mark from IceBlueBanana.com said he likes the Aussie slangs that come through in my writing…apparently. I never realised I was adding them but then I think Mark has been drinking a bit too much of his own blog juice and all that potassium has gone to his brain.
All jokes aside that was really awesome of Mark to say and just adds credence to the importance of injecting your own culture and language into the mix. If you have made it this far then you are going 1250 words strong so I thank you and I also apologise, I have this inability to write short posts.

• What are your pet Grammatical peeves?

(Mine is when lose is spelt loose! It’s prolific too!!!)

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Tagged as: blog spellchecker, common grammar mistakes, engaging blog content, spellchecker for blogs