Hello, fabulous people of the real estate blogging world! As the Marketing Manager here at RSSPieces.com, I have to read a lot of blogs.  This gives me the opportunity to proofread everyone else's mistakes (simply because I am neurotic and feel the need to be aware of such things).  Today I thought it would be a good idea to share some basic grammatical errors with all of you, so you can put them into effect in your own real estate blogs.  Many of these mistakes are common things that people overlook because they don't know any better, so don't beat yourself up if you realize that you, too, are guilty. I’m going to do this as a three-part series, partly because it would make for a really long post as one piece (I don’t want to overload you!), and partly because my brain may need a break after only five of these. There will be sixteen common errors in all. Why sixteen, you ask? I just like that number.

There are three versions of the word Their/There/They’re and each has its very own meaning. Every single one of you is guilty of making this mistake at least once, maybe in an email sent too quickly. Here’s a breakdown:

a.     Their – This signifies ownership of something, as in, “This is Joe and Jen, and their son Jack.” You may not use this version to signify the location of something, so stop doing it!

b.     There – This is the one that tells you the location of something. Here’s an example: “I parked my car over there, next to that tree.” 

c.     They’re – Also known as They Are (yes, that’s what that little apostrophe means!). So you could say, “Joe and Jen are leaving Jack here, and then they’re going to dinner.”

This is another example of incorrect usage of a word. Your and You’re is probably the most common error I see in blogs, emails and the like. 

a.     Your – This is an ownership word. Basically, it means that something is yours: “Thanks for letting me borrow your iPod, Frank. I’ll return it tomorrow.”

b.     You’re – Refer to They’re above. This is the same deal. You’re means You Are. As in, “You’re really going to be glad you read this!” (I know, a little cheesy. You try coming up with these example sentences!)

This one is a bit complicated, since there are so very many ways to use it. So to shorten this a bit, I’m going to focus only on Should Have, since most Americans are incredibly focused on what they Should be doing or Should Have done, anyway.

a.     Should Of – This is WRONG! I mean, really, say this out loud:  “Should of.” Does that honestly sound correct to you? Come on, people!

b.     Should Have – This is the correct usage of this term. “I should have tied my sneakers before running. I would have avoided that nasty fall down the stairs and the subsequent broken collarbone.” Be aware, this also works for Should Not Have or Shouldn’t Have. “I shouldn’t have had so much to drink last night!” (No, I am not referring to my personal life!)

c.     Should’ve – This means Should Have. See the sentence in Example B and replace Should Have with Should’ve.

Here is an example of a sentence. Please pay close attention (there may be a quiz later).

            “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.”

You’ve all seen this sentence before, probably in Microsoft Word whenever you try to change the font you’re using. An interesting fact: This sentence contains every letter in the alphabet (You’re checking, aren’t you?).

Let me color-code every word in the sentence and tell you what that word is. I also have to inform you that all sentences begin with a capital letter and end with punctuation (duh!). All sentences also must include a subject (noun), a verb, and maybe some other miscellaneous stuff like adverbs, adjectives and pronouns. If you didn’t know that, then you really need to revisit the English language.

Verb – This is an action. This is a necessary sentence component, so don’t leave it out!

Adjective - This is a description of a noun. This is an optional part of a sentence, but it makes the sentence more interesting.

Noun – This is the person, place, or thing that is the subject of the sentence. You don’t necessarily need one of these. 

This also has all components needed to make a sentence. See how easy this is?

And believe it or not, the following is also a sentence:

If you want to learn more, this is a great site that explains how you can properly structure all kinds of sentences. I’m not going to go into all that, because I don’t want to put you to sleep.

I know you are not a dictionary, and no one expects you to spell everything exactly right all the time. But here’s the thing – our program allows you to write your blog in Word, which I am doing at this very moment. We all know that Word has spell-check. Please, I implore you to learn how to use that tool! In addition to spell-check, Word also offers a grammar-check tool and a thesaurus (which gives you suggestions for alternate words that can be used). The really nifty thing about these tools is that they actually work while you write! Did you ever notice the red or green squiggly lines as you’re typing? Well, the red ones mean you spelled something wrong and the green ones mean your grammar is incorrect. If you use Outlook for your email, these same lines show up when you make mistakes. Huh, Word didn’t underline squiggly. I guess that’s a real word! 

For additional grammatical errors that copyblogger.com finds annoying, click here.  If I made any mistakes, please let me know!  I'm up for a little constructive criticism myself if I deserve it.  Now where's that spell-checker...?

Related Posts