linguistic pet peeves, part deux.

Dear anonymous Netizen:

If you feel the urgent need to communicate on the series of tubes that is the Internets, you need to have at least some grasp of the English language. Here are some pointers for the proper use of English:

--"Irregardless" is not a word.
--Neither is "supposably."
--The apostrophe is not simply a device to alert the reader that the letter S is following.
--"It's" is a contraction of "it is". "Its" is a possessive pronoun meaning "that which belongs to it". An easy way to verify use of the proper form is to expand "it's" into "it is", and see if the sentence still makes sense. "It's raining outside" expands to "It is raining outside", so the use of the contractive form is correct. "The dog has lost it's collar" expands to "The dog has lost it is collar," which is a clue that the apostrophe needs to go.
--"There" is an adverb meaning "at or in that place". "Their" is an adjective, the possessive form of "they". "They're" is a contraction of "they are". These words may sound alike when spoken, but they are not interchangeable in written English.
--Every time you type an Internet post or email in ALL CAPS, God kills a kitten. Please, think of the kittens.
--The word "amendment" only has two occurrences of the letter M, and they do not appear next to each other.
--"Lay" requires an object. ("I will lay that book on the table.") "Lie" does not. ("I will lie down.")
--"e.g" stands for "exempli gratia", which means "for example". "i.e." stands for "id est", which means "that is". These two are not interchangeable. "i.e." is used in the context of "in other words".
--No, it's not a "damn spelling contest, LOLZ", but people gauge your credibility by your ability to use language. This holds especially true for online communications, where the written word is your only way of conveying your message.

That is all for now. Thank you.