Two To's Too Many

The Clanton Hacienda-- My daughter sent me an instant message this morning. Short, to the point. I thanked her. She IM’d me back, “your welcome.”

I sat there for a minute, staring at the screen.
“Your welcome?”

I just put her through 14-years of public school (including Cosmo school), and I get “your welcome”?

So, I IM’d her back, “you’re.”
“(contraction of you and are)”

She IM’d me back, “r u kidding me?”

Before I could respond that as her loving parent, it was my responsibility to provide these gentle corrections, and that I didn’t want her to appear an ignorant reflection of her Dad and Mom, she typed another line to me, “I don’t have time for this.”

So there you have it.
You can IM to your heart’s delight, or in many cases, “2 yur hartz d-lite,” and I guess the normal rules of the grammatical road don’t apply.

Your vs you’re.

That’s one of those minor English conundrums like To, Too, and Two.
Hey, I’m no William Safire, but I, too, like to use the right word, especially when there are more than two ways to spell a similar-sounding word, a.k.a “homonymn.” Notice how I cleverly worked all three into the same sentence?

Here’s another one that sort of gets my goat in a minor way:
Their vs they’re vs there.

The possessive pronoun vs the contraction vs the adverb.

Then, there’s their’s vs theirs vs there’s.
Pick which word isn’t really a word.
You won’t find their’s there in the dictionary.

Minor stuff…like then and than…used to vs use to…who vs whom. Merry, marry, Mary.
You get the idea. No wonder California public schools would just as soon teach Ebonics.

But the one that really sends me over the edge on the grammarmometer is regardless vs irregardless. Regardless of what some may think or say, “irregardless” is a double-negative, and really not a word.

Fo shizzle.