Jan 11
10
Grammar, You’re Doing it Wrong.
Ok, that’s it. I literally cannot stand another minute without writing this post. Hackers of the world; what the fuck is wrong with you? As hackers, we are supposed to be at least somewhat smarter than the general populace. As Brian Baskin put it: “Hacker: An employee must have level 5 in all the other jobs to become a hacker. Hackers get a bonus to all skills.” However, the amount of grammatical errors I see doesn’t seem to be less than that of any other group of people on the internet. I’m used to seeing bullshit like this on facebook:
I expect more from the hacker community. Anything worth doing, is worth doing properly. As hackers, most of the things we say, aren’t said at all. They’re typed. This leaves no excuse for poor grammar. As we’ve been preaching to the users for years: if you’re not sure of something, GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND. However, if you’re feeling lazy, I’ll summarize a few key points for you here; because afterall, I’m a nice guy.
You’re vs. Your
Now, being on the internet comes with a certain degree of informality as anyone will tell you. However, informality =/= ignorance. For instance, while sentence fragments can be ignored in an informal setting, there is no excuse for not knowing the difference between “your” and “you’re.” Hell, in this world of informal text, I’ll even allow “youre.” Now, if you don’t know the difference, and are too lazy to Google it, I’ve found a handy visual aid thanks to the Warehouse Comic. Enjoy.
There. Now you have no excuse for mixing those up. It’s a pretty simple concept. I mean, you guys do know how contractions work, right? A contraction is the combining of two words. So if you’re trying to say “you are” then you use “you’re.” If you’re not trying to say “you are” then you get to use “your.” It’s really that simple. Moving on…
Apostrophes.
This is definitely one of my biggest pet peeves. People try to defend their incorrect use of apostrophes with the regular “it’s the internet!” comments and cries of “grammar nazi!” but seriously, adding an apostrophe where it isn’t needed is actually more work, so stop it. By far the most common offendees of misplaced apostrophes are plural acronyms and initialisms. I’ll explain. If you wanted to tell someone you had multiple copies of a DVD, you would say, “I have two of those DVDs.” NOT “I have two of those DVD’s.” What you’re implying here is that you haven’t finished your sentence and that the DVD owns something. There is a very easy rule to follow regarding this. You NEVER use an apostrophe to mark a pluralization. NEVER. No. Never.
Correct: On my last pen test, I got root on all of their servers.
Fail: On my last pen test, I had to punch one of the guard’s in the balls.
It’s vs. Its
Now for this one, I’ll actually excuse a little ignorance because it’s a fairly unknown rule; but now you know it, and get to look smarter than everyone else. Shut up, I know you love doing that, it’s why you’re a hacker. Contrary to every other word, “it” only has an apostrophe for the contraction of “it is.” If “it” is the subject, and you need to show ownership, it remains “its.” Example:
Correct: While repinning a lock, I dropped one of its springs. It’s lost in the carpet somewhere now.
Incorrect: A company asked me to test it’s website. Turns out its vulnerable to SQL injection!
And now, another Warehouse Comic!
Quotes
My final point for this post will be about quotation marks and their usage. Quotation marks should NEVER be used for emphasis. This is text people, there are a million other ways you can denote emphasis.
Correct: You should ALWAYS change your default passwords.
Correct: Never, under any circumstances, let an unauthorized person into a restricted area.
Incorrect: Everyone in the call center is acting like an “idiot” today.
Incorrect: Your “presence” here, court ordered.
(Why’d you put presence in quotes, are you implying we’re not here?)
Quotes can also denote the title of certain bodies of artistic works including song titles, short stories, poetry, chapters, and articles. If you’re not sure how to properly note the title of a certain work, it has become generally acceptable to put the titles of ALL works in italics.
I’m sure I’ll notice more grammatical issues that annoy me in the future: so rest assured, there will be a “Grammar, You’re Doing it Wrong Part 2.” Let the comments commence!
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