Grrrrrr... Pet Peeves Email Swap

If this was a snail mail swap, I'd join in a heartbeat! One of those ubiquitous grammatical errors that drives to distraction is 'then' in place of 'than'. e.g., "I like that one more then this one." The only one that fucks me off more than that is people writing 'stationary' when they really mean 'stationery' - especially at a place like swap-bot where so many of us do talk about stationery! How hard is it to learn it once and for all? Devote an afternoon to learning the difference between the two words. A sacrifice of one afternoon for a lifetime of rectitude! Some people should also remember that in the word 'separate', the r separates two 'a's. (That's how my 5th grade teacher taught me.) Although I do understand the difficulty - at first approach it can appear to be counterintuitive - another thing worth learning is that the apostrophe in 'it's' is a signal that the word is a contraction of two words ('it is'). I guess I just learnt that one outright because it looks like an anomaly; there's no possessive indicator necessary with the word 'its' when it is the possessive form of 'it'. 'Its' is devoid of the expected apostrophe when it is meant to mean something belonging to 'it'. OK, class dismissed. Teacher's passion is on the wane...!

'Its' is devoid of the expected apostrophe when it is meant to mean something belonging to 'it'. Now I didn't know that and I'm a primary school teacher. At least I was till 7 years ago. Goes off, hides head in shame. LOL

PAPERCAPER - That is THE pet peeve that instituted this swap. It's is a contraction meaning it is - it's NEVER possessive.

Hizzah! Someone who understands my pain! Why don't you start this theme as a snail mail swap, I'm in!

Just a note, to remember stationery think E for envelope.

Thanks for the stationery trick, Momskii!