Your An Idiot

Okay, quick rant mode here, because I've been seeing this one with even greater frequency than normal lately, or at least it seems that way –

I'm willing to forgive a lot of typos. In casual online discourse, I mean, like in email or texts. Not in fiction, of course. Whether in print or on the Web or in an e-book, you should try to eliminate as many typos from your finished, polished writing as humanly possible. But if you're dashing off a quick Facebook post? Sure, I can overlook it if you're typing faster than you're thinking, and managed to slip up and type "their" when you meant "there." I mean, I'll judge you, still, but I won't completely write you off.

Except. There is one type of mistake that will make me think you're an absolute moron.

Using "your" when you mean "you're." (Or "their" when you mean "they're," although I don't see that one as often.)

I'm just — how do you even do that? They're not only two different words, they're two entirely different kinds of words. That just tells me that you don't really even understand what a contraction is, you don't really get how words are constructed, you just have some vague idea from learning by rote what sounds get plugged into a sentence. It tells me that you're perfectly comfortable dashing off a sentence that doesn't have a goddamn verb in it and you won't even notice.

So when you show me how poor your understanding of language is, I start to wonder how well constructed your thoughts can possibly be.

Okay, rant over. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled programming.