Correct Your Grammar: It Saves Lives
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Student Life

Correct Your Grammar: It Saves Lives

It's not you, it's your grammar.

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Correct Your Grammar: It Saves Lives
Cathryn Lavery

During my senior year of high school, my English teacher said that we would spend a week working on nothing but grammar. Everybody looked at her like she was out of her mind. We were all about to graduate, none of us needed to have a grammar lesson. However, to everybody's surprise, when we took a small grammar test, nobody received a 100%.

To this day, that full week of learning nothing but grammar frequently comes to the forefront of my mind, and now I realize just how many people makes these small grammar mistakes daily. Your phone might correct a word that you have spelled wrong, but it does not fix all mistakes. Here is some grammar help so that the next time you are writing a paper or a photo caption, there will not be any mistakes!

1. There, their, they're

The word "there" is your choice when it comes to talking about locations. The word "their" indicates possession, and "they're" is the product of two words: they and are.

1. Put your coat down over there.

2. That blue house is their house.

3. They're planning to meet us at the restaurant.

2. Where, wear, were, we're

The word "where" is used when asking a question having to do with location or giving directions to a location. The word "wear" refers to clothing and accessories that you can carry or have on your body. "Were" is the past tense of are, and is used when asking about something that happened already. "We're" is the contraction of we and are.

1. Where are we going for dinner?

2. I like the outfit that you are wearing for dinner.

3. What were you doing last night?

4. We're planning to meet for lunch sometime today.

3. Dessert, desert

A dessert is a cake, pie, fruit, pudding, ice cream, etc., served as the final course of a meal. A desert is a region so arid because of little rainfall that it supports only sparse and widely spaced vegetation or no vegetation at all.

1. Ice cream is my favorite dessert!

2. The desert is full of camels and rattlesnakes.

4. Angel, angle

An angel is a guardian spirit that acts as an agent of messenger of God. An angle is a space between two intersecting lines.

1. Each Christmas, my family puts an angel on the top of our tree.

2. In geometry class, we learned about an obtuse angle.

5. Then, than

The word "then" is used when discussing time. The word "than" is used when introducing a comparison.

1. I have less space than you in my apartment.

2. If you had cleaned your room, then you would be able to find your cellphone!

6. Lose, loose

The word "loose" is not firmly or tightly fixed in place. The word "lose" is unable to find (something or someone).

1. I thought these pair of jeans were going to fit me, but they're really loose.

2. I tend to lose my phone when i'm trying to clean my room.

7. To, too, two

The word "to" is a preposition before a noun or as an infinitive before a verb. The word "too" is used to indicate excessiveness before a verb. "Two" is used to spell out the number two.

1. We don't need to buy dinner right now.

2. I had too many cookies after lunch.

3. Do you have two dollars?

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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