250,000 Fans Can't Can Be Wrong

I don't consider myself to be Sergeant Wagfinger of the Grammar Police. I know my writing and grammar aren't exactly perfect (as many long-term readers would know, ahem), and well, glass houses and all that.

But!

If there's one thing that drives me batty, it's "Your/You're, There/Their/They're" sloppy errors. These are two (three?) of the most common mistakes (especially on the intertubes) in just about everything I read, and they cause me no end of teeth grinding when I see them. Particularly "their/they're"... just... ARGH.

Anyway, knowing about this little pet peeve of mine, a friend sent me a link to a facebook group called "The Correct Usage of 'You're,' 'Your,' 'There,' 'Their' and 'They're.'" (I'm not linking; they can be easily found if you're so inclined.) Like most of these facebook groups, I usually take a look, get a chuckle, then join or don't join and promptly forget about them.

Well, I took a look, but I definitely didn't get a chuckle.

Here is the delightful graphic that accompanies this group. I emailed this to Melissa and Deeks, noting "Gee, do you think a woman or a homo created this?*"


Deeky:

let's see... "your mother is a slutwhore." hmmm... no, a woman didn't write that.

oh.... and "you're normal" vs. "you're gay." no, a homo didn't write that.

I then noted that this particular group had nearly 250,000 members who probably found this image hilarious. Liss:

I despair for the world. I really do.

Meanwhile, I wonder how it is that so many people (because you know there were women/gay men who were among that 250k!) can laugh at reminders of their own marginalization.

"Oh, it doesn't affect me."

Oh yeah? Compare your paycheck to your male counterpart, ladies. Go down to city hall and try to get hitched, homos. Now let's all laugh at the high-larious jokes about slutwhores and abnormal sexualities.

Yep.

But I know, I'm just looking for stuff to get mad about, I'm too sensitive, I just need to get over it, blah blah blah blah.

Or, as I'm sure I'd hear from many fans of this group, I'm "being gay."

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* Not intending to suggest, of course, that the groups are mutually exclusive.