Common Errors in English

Sometimes even native English speakers screw up the language, and while I’m sure that’s true for native speakers of all languages, if you’re going to be a writer, you’ll never be taken seriously if you don’t get it right.

English is a weird language as it is. It doesn’t have rules as such, merely guidelines with multiple exceptions, and therefore writing proper English takes a little practice and a lot of searching around for individual guides regarding the exceptions.

There are so many errors I’ve seen in adult games both old and new, and all of them are avoidable by a simple web search. Seeing as some writers can’t seem to be bothered to look up and perfect their writing, here’s a quick guide to help with some of the errors that are simple to figure out.

The first one is confusing Quiet with Quite. If you say something is “quiet good” that makes no sense, but if you say it’s “quite good” then that works.
Quiet means being silent, so you would say “let’s be very quiet.”
Quite is a word that expresses certainty, so you would say “that was quite hot.”

The second one is a common error that confuses hearing the phrase “should have” or “should’ve,” and writing it as should of.
So should have, should’ve, would have, would’ve, could have, could’ve… That’s English. Should of? Would of? Could of? Not English. Think about it this way; you wouldn’t ask someone “Of you done that thing you were going to do?” because the word “of” there makes no sense. You would ask “Have you done that thing you were going to do?” Therefore you would say “You could have done it by now.” and not “You could of done it by now.”

The next thing I want to talk about is There / their / they’re. I mean, this has been explained to death on so many articles, but I feel it still has to be mentioned.
The word “there” is used in sentences like; go there, be there, there you go, etc. It denotes a place or a direction.
The word “their” is used like; that’s their job, that’s their car, she’s their daughter. It denotes ownership.
“They’re” is a shortened form of the phrase “they are, ” so it can be used as; they’re coming, they’re going, or, they’re crazy!

Similar to the above is the your vs you’re issue.
The image here really covers it well, but to clarify, “your” denotes ownership, so for example; that’s your car, that’s your phone, or, that’s your typo.

“You’re” is a shortened form of “you are,” so you’d use it as; know you’re an idiot, but you’re a man, or, you’re not there!

The last one I want to mention for now is (and I can’t believe I have to mention this), but for crying out loud, you say “not many people” and NOT “not much people!”

There are many more errors to discuss, so keep an eye out for more in this series. Do you have any common errors that annoy you? If so, let me know in the comments!