Dateline Boston — Facebook has been very, very good to me. It got me a husband and a job. It also got me an overwhelming desire to correct people’s grammar and misspellings on their posts.
I can’t help it. When I see someone write “your” when they mean “you’re,” I cringe. If someone says, “It was on the ground,” and the person was inside, I say, “That’s the floor, not the ground. The ground is outside.” A lot of people write “awe” when they are commenting on something that’s cute. The other day I corrected a friend. I went into an explanation of the differences between “awe” (inspiring) and “aww” (cute sound). He responded with, “Thanks, Teach.” The next time I saw him, he seemed a little different to me, so I wrote to him and apologized if my “aww” comment had offended him. He was a little thrown. But not a big deal. I made a comment about how my OCD gets the best of me.
Well, it made me think. Who am I to correct grown people’s grammar? I’m not an English teacher in a classroom teacher. I’m on Facebook posting pictures of my cats! Who cares if one says “lay” or “lie”? I break rules too when I use “they” when speaking about just one person. I put words in quotes before a period, knowing that’s incorrect. I just think it looks better.
Social media and texting have changed the way we write—we have autocorrect, which many people don’t go back and fix if something is misspelled. Everyone knows what is trying to be said.
I’ve decided to get off my Grammar Soapbox and keep my mouth shut when a Facebook post is not to my ridiculous standards. Write on, friends. There are far more important things to be thinking about these days.
Ms. Vaillancourt may be contacted at snobbyblog@gmail.com
