I know I have anger management issues. I know that it’s bad for my heart when I fly into these fits of uncontrollable rage. I know it’s wrong to karate chop my keyboard.

I also know that many people who dare call themselves writers have no business ever putting pen to paper!

These common spelling and grammatical mistakes are not rocket science. In fact, all of them are taught at elementary school! Perhaps this is why, in this age of digital media and blogging where everyone claims to be a writer, that I find myself with perpetual high blood pressure from these most common and easily fixable grammatical and spelling errors. Mistakes that my ten year old daughter doesn’t make!

Well, here they are:

Lose vs. Loose

Mistake: “I don’t want you to LOOSE your laptop.”

Correction: “I don’t want you to LOSE your laptop.”

Every time I see this I want to stab myself in they eyeball with a pencil. The words sound different, look different, are spelled differently and mean completely different things! “Lose” means to misplace something so that you cannot find it. “Loose” is the opposite of “tight.”

Affect vs. Effect

Mistake: “My comments will EFFECT the outcome of the meeting.”

Correction: “My comments will AFFECT the outcome of the meeting.”

This one is a little more tricky and is maybe easier to forgive when a mistake is made. The easiest way to remember is that ‘affect’ is a verb and ‘effect’ is a noun.

Your vs. You’re

Mistake: “YOU’RE grammar sucks.”

Correction: “YOUR grammar sucks.”

Slow down. Think about what you are trying to write. “You’re” is a contraction of ” you are.” They are interchangeable, meaning that if you cannot substitute the word “you’re” with “you are” in your sentence then you have probably spelled in wrong. “Your” is a possessive pronoun that indicates ownership such as “your car” or “your dog.”

Could of vs. Could have

Mistake: “I COULD OF finished the race first.”

Correction: “I COULD HAVE finished the race first.”

I think this one stems from lazy transliteration of lazy speech patterns. I suppose “could of” sounds a lot like the contraction, “could’ve,” but unfortunately there is no such phrase as “could of” in the English language.

It’s vs. Its

Mistake: “IT’S collar is too tight.”

Correction: “ITS collar is too tight.”

This mistake is very closely related to the “you’re vs. your” problem. Its is a possessive pronoun. “It’s” is a contraction of “it is.” If you can say “it is” in the sentence you are trying to construct then you can replace it with “it’s.”

Then vs. Than

Mistake: “I am bigger THEN you.”

Correction: “I am bigger THAN you.”

I cannot even comprehend how this one came about. But I see it everywhere. I mean, these words don’t even sound the same.

There vs. Their

Mistake: “THERE dog is wet.”

Correction: “THEIR dog is wet.”

Their is another possessive pronoun that really seems to trip people up. It indicates possession such as “their dog” or “their car.” On the other hand “there” is usually used to denote a place, such as “put the dog there” or as a pronoun such as “there are a lot of bad writers on the internet.”

Now I don’t want to come off as a grammar Nazi. I make spelling and grammar mistakes quite a lot myself. But the grammar and spelling mistakes above are rudimentary. They are taught at elementary school precisely for the reason that they are simple. Making these mistakes is lazy.