English, Do You Speak It?

This post is a rant, I’ll make it plain and simple. Not about anyone in particular, although reading it you’ll know who you are, it’s about common misspellings that have begun to really annoy me. I’m not talking about typos, everyone makes a typo or forgets to spellcheck – fine. This is about people who feel the need to put the wrong word or even add letters!

The first culprit is the word equipment, and yes that’s how it is spelled. There is no ‘t’ after the ‘p’! I have seen it spelled this way so many times I’m beginning to think I missed the memo when it was announced that it was being changed to include a ‘t’. Look at this website: http://www.strictlyequiptment.com/. Obviously the word equipment is spelled wrong in the URL, but if you look at the site you’ll see it spelled correctly on the banner at the top…and that’s it. Any other time it is mentioned, the sneaky little ‘t’ works its way back in. It’s almost painful.

Another mistake which grates on me is the usage of the word loose instead of lose. Admittedly this only tends to crop up on social network sites (Facebook, MySpace etc) but nevertheless it is still ridiculous. It is a completely different word and meaning, why put it? Similarly, these people put the word loosing instead of losing – which isn’t even a word! People who are apparently ‘loosing their mind’ shouldn’t have lost their dictionary first. English, it’s not THAT hard.

Of course there are the common mistakes found almost daily in any text, and these are primarily the misuse of there, their and they’re. I can understand someone getting it wrong who is perhaps learning English and fairly new to the language, three different words sounding the same is confusing, but if you have been through the education system and been taught English from the age of 4 you should know which one is which! However, I obviously don’t mean people with dyslexia or learning difficulties…I mean people who either can’t be bothered to learn or don’t care about what they’re writing.

The last mistake I’d like to pick up upon is the your vs you’re fiasco. Nowadays it seems the word your has taken precedence over you’re for all meanings either one had, despite having a completely different meaning to you’re. An apostrophe is placed in a word to signify missing letters, you’re is short for you are – it’s that simple! Your on the other hand means it belongs to you, it is yours! Easy huh?

Sorry for the little English lesson but I do like to think I’ve helped the world in some small way.

It’s A Limit Not A Target…Apparently

Now I’ve been driving for just over a year it is becoming more and more obvious that no-one pays attention to the speed limit signs, ever. Despite driving a Corsa which has been ‘chavved out’ I don’t drive around the streets of Lincoln with other spruced up hatchback drivers creating havoc and generally going far too fast for no apparent reason.

Like any normal member of society I will drive at the speed limit, if it says 30 I will drive at 30. Not cruising around at 45 and slamming the brakes on when I see a speed camera, you just look an idiot. If you have somewhere to get that urgently you should have left your house 10 minutes earlier.

At the same time though I am not a fan of those drivers who are quite content with driving 10mph below the speed limit, what is the point? I can understand if you really love driving  and want the experience to last forever, but driving down the A15 in the rain is hardly a moment I’d love to relive – especially stuck behind a trail of cars doing 48mph because some old coot won’t put his foot down. The national speed limit is 60mph on a single carriageway, why not get to 60?!

When the car was first invented, 60mph was unimaginable. Nowadays that’s how we measure how quick a car is, the 0-60 time is everything! The ability to travel at a mile a minute in relative comfort doesn’t seem to appeal to quite a lot of drivers though, they’d much rather sit doing 48mph or go screeching past you at 75mph into an oncoming lorry…sadly though, I’m not that cool.