The decline of America's ability to write properly continues. Today's lesson: ensure vs. insure

[blackdogdeek]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
I've now caught people using insure in place of ensure in two notable spots. One was closed captioning, and another more significant one was on the back of a return envelope from UPS. I want to ENSURE that people know that when one INSURES something they are purchasing INSURANCE for it. Thanks!

is closed captioning manually typed? or is it voice recognition software? if the latter, which i always thought was the case, then it can't be held responsible for using the wrong homophone. if the former, then i agree.

my other favorites:

then/than
could have/could of
your/you're
extra apostrophe's

in fact i saw the then/than error on the bottom line on espn(the little scrolling info bar)

 

[Xede]

I read a blog yesterday that contained the word "impaticulare"--instead of "in particular."

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Mookow
Admit it skoorbie, you were an English major, werent you?

Nope! I didn't do very well in English either in school Of course I bet if I'd attended school in the US I'd have had a scholarship to an Brown, based on my English :evil:

 

[OutHouse]

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson

Originally posted by: Citrix
your Canadian, what do you know about he American language? We make it up as we go.

A point wonderfully made, indeed.

hehehe
:beer:

 

[Confused]

Originally posted by: mugs
I actually find it more difficult to write poorly. Typing in proper English (more or less) has become a habit for me, so I have to consciously think about not hitting the shift key or leaving out punctuation.

This is the same for me. I have to think more about my typing when I try to NOT punctuate and capitalise properly. Trying to write "y do u 2 do dat" instead of "why do you two do that" takes about three times more effort from my brain

Kids nowadays

Confused

 

[Vortex22]

your just beeing anal skoorb dont tell me how to spek I now how ot speek just fine thx vbery much!

 

[C'DaleRider]

Originally posted by: Argo
This is actually a pet peeve of mine. Not the ensure/insure, but the ammount of attention that's being paid to written message. Sometimes I wonder if this is due to lack of knowledge (are our public schools that bad?) or due to laziness. In all honestly though, how much time do you save by typing 'u r up', instead of 'you are up'? And what's up with not capitalizing, is it that hard to hold down the shift key? Makes it living hell having to read a paragraph with sentences glued together, unable to tell where one sentence ends and another starts.

I'd venture it stems from pure laziness. After all, both proper grammar and spelling are still taught in schools. The lack of proper usage of both I'd think stems from parents who don't care about their children's schoolwork, students who don't care about what's being taught and aren't given any reinforcement at home, and people who don't care about anything outside their self-interests.

 

[Balt]

I insure you I will take this lesson to heart.

 

[TheVrolok]

I agree completely, the amount of people in this country who use absolutely terrible grammar astounds me. Everytime I hear one of these rants I'm reminded of Maddox's page where he responds to the people flaming him for his spelling error in "insane" as he used "inane" instead.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: TheVrolok
I agree completely, the amount of people in this country who use absolutely terrible grammar astounds me. Everytime I hear one of these rants I'm reminded of Maddox's page where he responds to the people flaming him for his spelling error in "insane" as he used "inane" instead.

That guy is hilarious.

 

[PanzerIV]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: Argo
This is actually a pet peeve of mine. Not the ensure/insure, but the ammount of attention that's being paid to written message. Sometimes I wonder if this is due to lack of knowledge (are our public schools that bad?) or due to laziness. In all honestly though, how much time do you save by typing 'u r up', instead of 'you are up'? And what's up with not capitalizing, is it that hard to hold down the shift key? Makes it living hell having to read a paragraph with sentences glued together, unable to tell where one sentence ends and another starts.

I actually find it more difficult to write poorly. Typing in proper English (more or less) has become a habit for me, so I have to consciously think about not hitting the shift key or leaving out punctuation. Don't get me started on "prolly" and "thx" and all the other crap the kids use these days.

Same here. I do the occassional shortcut and what have you but purposely making errors is generally something I can't make myself do without gritting my teeth. I am far from perfect but writing well seems much the exception rather than the rule these days. It's a shame.

 

[PingSpike]

In forums I tend to check things a little more and try to have at least somewhat correct grammer. In straight chat though...I type it once, fast and if its wrong I hit enter anyway. Chat (in games in particular) is just about getting the point across, not creating a beautiful essay.

 

[rh71]

Originally posted by: DaveJ

Originally posted by: CChaos
Don't get me started on this. Between email, messageboards, instant messaging, and handhelds the English language is all but doomed in this country. I can appreciate that people just want to get the message across, but frankly I think that's just an excuse to be careless. Now don't get me wrong, everyone makes mistakes and typos are only natural, but it's getting to the point where something well written, spelled and punctuated correctly is the exception rather than the rule.

Well said!

Dave

Seconded that.
<-- COM major

 

[axelfox]

This is "rediculous"