Crimes against English

Many loud-type people concern themselves with activizing about trivial matters such as The Environment or The Sanctity of Marriage or Paper or Plastic. Among the topics that I plan to discuss semi-occasionally in this blog, the tragic abuse of English grammar and punctuation will play a major role. Or it might play a significant role. Or I might forget about it sometimes.

Anyway, ever since I was born at an early age, I have been outraged (well, really annoyed) by the heartless torture and cruelty inflicted on our poor language. As a public service, and for my amusement, and for your amusement, I will be exposing mistreatment of English. If you are an offender, I will help you to mend your ways.

By the way, I won't be featuring errors by those for whom English is a second (or more often third or fourth) language. The translation flubs of companies are already well-documented at the hilarious Engrish website. But if you are just somebody who has taken the trouble to learn more than one language, you're entitled to a few mistakes in the only one most Americans know.
Note: Crimes against English will feature photos taken on an old, crummy digital camera by a poor photographer, often in lousy lighting. You may interpret this as visual parallelism befitting the poor language skills demonstrated if you like. Or not.

This photo was taken at a national-chain video store. If you are unfamiliar with the correct usage your and you're, consult these easy-to-understand descriptions and examples, which I have attempted to tailor to those people who most need them.

The word your always describes something "you" own.

Your

"Hey Clem, is that your new pickup? Them naked lady mud flaps is real classy!"

The word you're, in contrast, is a contraction of the words you and are.

You're

"The word you're, in contrast, is a contraction of the words you and are."

See how easy it is to avoid the kind of heinous attacks on human language that threaten to tear apart the fabric of our very society? Together, we can right the wrongs perpetrated against English by People Who Should Know Better. Alternatively, we can roll our eyes, giggle at them, and feel superior in a nerdy sort of way.