Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Excuse me while I clean my brains off the walls....

A young friend who consistently and erroneously uses "then" instead of "than" in her Facebook posts just used "than" when it should have been "then".

My head exploded a little bit.

"Than" indicates an unequal comparison: Jan is skinnier than Carol.

"Then" indicates order in time or place: I am going to work, then to the grocery store. To get to my place, you pass the QuikTrip, then the Post Office.

These aren't even homonyms, like the "you're" and "your" confusion. Or "their" and "there". Honestly people, for the sake of the grammarians in your lives, learn the differences.

1 comment:

melissa said...

I do understand. (Had seen this post the other day on my phone, but can't log-in to Blogger to comment on it using my Smartphone...don't ask me why. Had to wait until I'd gotten on my laptop, which is now!)

Anyway, my husband has never gotten his head around their/there/they're or your/you're. Used to drive me nuts, but he's such a catch, have to overlook. As he has to overlook my nonsense.

But as I said, I do understand. :)