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The Goat - Grammar ire!

Theirs nothing that winds me up more than bad grammar.

And speling.

Its not funny when you miss out an apostrophe or get there confused with theyre. Your really bound to get on someones goat.

But you know what really winds me up is that there will be some of you out there who won’t have even spotted the mistakes in the previous two paragraphs.

Don’t get me wrong as I hate pedants and people that tut as well.

But for bleeding hell’s sake it’s not exactly rocket science to learn some basic grammar rules.

If a seven year old can do it then so can you.

Unless you suffer from dyslexia. Then that’s fair enough. But if you’re not dyslexic and still get them wrong then we bet you’re gutted that there’s no modern day equivalents to being the village idiot unless you count working in the department of works and pensions or as the guy who has to stand there with a ‘Golf Sale’ sign day in day out. (Why are there so many Golf Sales anyway?)

The worst culprits are on permanent signs which should have gone through a proofing process that carries a bit more weight than Microsoft Spellcheck.

‘It’ only has an apostrophe when it is the shortened form of ‘it is’ or ‘it has’.

For example ‘it’s raining’.

When something belongs to it there’s no apostrophe as in ‘its hat’.

We know it’s confusing as an apostrophe ‘s’ is used on every other possessive in the bloody world. But it’s a rule and really it’s not that bloody difficult a rule to learn and if you want to wind up a goat there’s nothing that gets on its goat more¬ than getting it wrong.

(Oh and when it’s more of one thing owning something like a group of boys who own a football, the apostrophe goes after the ‘s’ so it’s ‘the boys’ football.’)

If you’re still confused, you really should give up on life or at least enter the next series of Big Brother.

Grammar is important. A misplaced comma can make the difference between cannibalism or just inviting grandad to eat. As in ‘Let’s eat Grandpa’ or ‘Let’s eat, Grandpa’.

It’s the same with ‘there’, ‘their’ or ‘they’re’ and ‘your’ and ‘you’re’. People who get any of these wrong consistently should really not be functioning in modern life. Grammar and spelling are important. Defiantly!