[heyhoser]

"They" are the evil monkey's in my closet.

[Librarianne]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('tinosorb', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Librarianne', ' ')I am appalled at the spelling and grammer

[Badger]

The Bilderberg Group is the elusive THEY

and they have a plan although the false OPEC reserve numbers have crimped there plans somewhat...

[Kent]

I am one of the posters guilty of spelling "lose" with two o's...ie. "loose," and I am a pretty decent speller. I have no excuse but I do think this is a tricky grammar/spelling issue. The correct spelling "lose" actually looks wrong to me. It is an irregular English pronunciation that would normally be pronounced, l(oh)s.

Another tricky and very common mistake:

- Using "it's" for the possesive of it, when it actually stands for the contraction of "it is." I see this one in print all the time - packaging, magazines, etc.

I used to be a pretty horrible speller so I try to cut people a great deal of slack, especially if their content is decent. However, there are a couple of mistakes that drive me crazy, one of them being:

- Using "there" for the possessive of they, "their" or the contraction of "they are."

But really, these are very minor errors compared to some of the ghastly mistakes I see on the internet.

Examples:

- I frequently see people who spell the word "almost" as "omost" and the word "probably" as "probly."

I think one of the problems is that many people try to spell English words phonetically which is frequently disastrous. A second, increasingly more common problem is that people no longer have or take the time to proof their writing.

[killJOY]

English is a pathological language. After all, I teach it.

I love speech mannerisms, accents, slang. Speech is a different beast than writing. Speech is alive, evolving,

But writing. <sigh>

English history goes back to Old German. Then came the Norman invasion in 1066, and the poults started running with the chickens, the beef with the cows, and the little porques mit der Schweine.

English grammer,<oh frig, I did it too> was codified in 17th century London, which is especially galling for American speakers of it.

Did you know the word "KNIGHT" used to be pronounced "kuh-NEEESSHHT," or something like that?

Bernard Shaw has a great joke on English orthography (spelling):

GHOTI.

Know what that spells? FISH.

The "gh" from "enough"
The "o" from "women"
The "ti" from nation

And you wonder why you can't spell?

Those of us that can are retarded. We can't balance checkbooks.

[mgibbons19]

I had a student today say "aren't they fixing it?" meaning social security. I told her to have a half million or million in a retirement account by the time she retires.

And the whole idea that plural's are made by 's.

Good god that aggravates me.

[CrudeAwakening]

There's nothing "we" can do, only "they" can fix the problem. I think that's how it goes. Discharge of personal responsibility in a world where we feel increasingly powerless to change things.

No wonder the world's screwed up, we've been leaving it all to "them".

[entropyfails]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CrudeAwakening', 'T')here's nothing "we" can do, only "they" can fix the problem. I think that's how it goes. Discharge of personal responsibility in a world where we feel increasingly powerless to change things.

No wonder the world's screwed up, we've been leaving it all to "them".

[ShawnAvery]

'They' is Santa Clause and his horde of elves who give us nice things if we behave.

Unfortunately, Santa's compound fell into the ocean because of climate change and all the elves drowned.

Santa's corpse washed up on the shore of greenland and they figured he was an ancient viking that was frozen in an ancient glacier.

'ho ho ho. merry peak oil. thanks for ruining my climate.' -santa

[Nike62]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('entropyfails', '
')For every problem that people face, our culture tells them to “not worry”
because “someone” (scientists, government, the market, or some other
abstraction) will correct their problem for them and thus encourages
affected individual to go back to sleep and not to try to find a different
way of living to solve their own problems.

[Tyler_JC]

Interesting...

To me, "they" are evil and must be destroyed!
To others, "they" will save us!

I must have an entirely different set of life experiences than every single other person on this forum and everyone else on the forum has a remarkably similar sense of existence.

Very interesting indeed...

I'm not sure what to make of this revelation.