GRAMMAR NAZI ALERT

I feel a rant coming on. No one's going to read all of this, and I probably won't have any friends anymore, but I can't stop it.

You know what really freaking irritates me? When I see things that are for sale, like t-shirts or posters or whatever, with SPELLING ERRORS ON THEM. Especially handmade things, because then it's like, what, you just didn't check before you printed up the t-shirt? Just assumed you were right and went ahead and made it? I mean, really, if you're trying to SELL SOMETHING to people, you'd think you'd want to get it right. =/

Also really annoying - when people misuse apostrophes. I'm not talking about not doing contractions wrong, which is ALSO also really annoying; no, I mean when someone shortens a word and puts an apostrophe at the end of it for no reason. Example:

"You" to "ya" is a new word entirely, not half a word or two words smashed together.
"Want to" to "wanna" is a new word entirely. It's slang, not a contraction.
NEITHER OF THESE NEED APOSTROPHES.

And it's annoying enough to see "When are ya' coming over?" but when I see "When are ya' comin over?" my vision fades to red and I just start banging my head against the desk. APOSTROPHES AREN'T THAT HARD. Seriously, here are the basic rules of apostrophes:

1) Contractions, which are SPECIFICALLY these formats: "can not" to "can't," "will not" to "won't," "you are" to "you're," "she is" to "she's." Obviously there are more contractions than these, but these are examples of the format. We all know the contractions, but we don't all know how to use them, apparently.
2) To show possession. This is admittedly a little tricky, especially with names that end in s. "Erin's book." "Kelly's room." "Chris' problems," SINGULAR. NOW, if it's a name that ends in s and there are TWO of them, it would be "That's the Chris's problem now." Some grammarians say that it doesn't matter which you use, as long as you're consistent.
3) To shorten words. 'Cause. Goin'. These are the proper ways of shortening words - if you are simply taking off a letter or two and not adding any more, you can tack on an apostrophe.

Chris' comment shows he doesn't understand what I'm sayin'. SEE. It's EASY.


And another thing, just because it irritates me to no end:
YOUR = POSSESSIVE. Your book. Your shoe.
YOU'RE = CONTRACTION FOR "YOU ARE." You're crazy. You're wrong.
If YOU'RE not saying "you are," leave the apostrophe out of YOUR word.

There = a place. Over there. There it is.
Their = possessive, belonging to people who are not you or me. It's theirs.
They're = a contraction for "they are." They're going. They're with me.
THEY'RE going to get THEIR books from over THERE. "The" is always first no matter which one it is.

THESE ARE NOT THAT HARD, WHY DO PEOPLE GET THEM WRONG?

I'm not trying to be stuck up here or anything, but SERIOUSLY. This is our NATIVE LANGUAGE. We've all been speaking it since we were like, two or three, at least. There is no excuse, short of a mental handicap, for not knowing the basic rules of spelling and grammar. I mean, really, they haven't changed for a while. And I'm not talking about hard stuff, I'm talking about CONTRACTIONS and HOMOPHONES.

I find it particularly delicious and hilarious when I see something like this on Facebook:

"i shouldnt have to press 1 for englihs, your in AMERICA, learn the language!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Oh, I love it when people do things like this. XD Except for the blatant disregard for all rules of capitalization, spelling, and punctuation. Three exclamation points, MAX, guys. But really, the fact that they're saying "learn the language" in English that is ENTIRELY WRONG, oh, it just makes the evil part of me laugh and laugh. And then I get really scared because what if one of these people is in charge of something important? They can't even spell the name of our language, how are they going to do anything else? Then my brain and my heart huddle together and have a good cry, while the evil part of me is still snickering away.

tl;dr version: LEARN ENGLISH AND USE IT PROPERLY. There's no excuse not to, and people won't make fun of you and call you an idiot if you can speak your OWN FREAKING LANGUAGE. Well, they might, but it'll probably happen less.