Just want to point out that losing and loosing, or rather 'loosening', are two completely different things.
Losing is where something is being taken away, perhaps and loosing (loosening rather) is where something is tight, maybe a lid on a jar, and the more you try to unscrew the lid, the looser it gets.
This lose/loose mistake occurs a lot with BI survivors or even non BI survivors.
This is also similar with pacific and specific.
"I specifically told you to fly over the pacific ocean" or "I pacifically told you to fly over the specific ocean".
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Matt2584
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As a self confessed grammar nazi I don't necessarily think that a BI makes it more likely. I regularly see these kind of mistakes made by people all of the time. People often use 'to many' instead of 'too many' when writing that there is more than is needed.
Dyslexia or learning difficulties are more likely I would guess.
I probably phrased it a bit wrong, I know it is not just BI survivors and I did state that but I think I mention BI survivors cos it is understandable to make spelling errors.
I am a pedant, I was before, now, I'm a pedant with a brain injury, and the associated irritability... Fun times when I'm trying to work with people who say 'pacifically' and type 'as being' instead of 'has been'...
They're= apostrophe denotes missing 'a', they are.
Their= has an 'I' in it, but isn't 'mine'.
Sometimes it stuck, sometimes it didn't, getting things to 'stick' in brains, whether injured ones or not, is a tricky business, it's not a one-size-fits-all thing, much of my portfolio work revolved around 'how many ways do you need to describe an elephant, so EVERYONE in the room knows it is an elephant?'
I suppose that many of us on here are of an age where the majority of learning was done by repetition, it's really not that simple, and many people of generations past will have been failed by that system, because their minds needed something more to 'latch' on to.
The one that used to catch me out was its/it's- you don't need the possessive apostrophe on 'his', or 'hers', so you don't need it on 'its', only on "it's", denoting 'it is'... Isn't the English language just a delight?
I can understand why foreign peopl find the english language a difficult language to learn.
Americans can speak better English, I think. They spell words how they sound most of the time and a lot of people in England think they are idiots by how they talk.
Take the word 'liqueur' in English, 'liquor' to them and sounds like 'licker'.
I wish our English was more like theirs, theres, they'res sometimes :).
I and my family even use some American phrases, we prefer the season 'Fall' as opposed to our 'Autumn' or how about a babies dummy?
To them it is a pacifyer. Which makes it better really because a dummy could be seen as a few things. A goofy person or a crash test dummy/mannaquin or a babies chew toy.
See that is where I think foreigners could struggle sometimes as some of our words have more than one meaning.
Also, when it comes to it's as in it is. I was taught that the apostrophe in it's not only takes place of the space between the 'it' and 'is' as well as the second I but also the apostrophe signifies when an item belongs to somebody or something.
I just had to think about using the apostrophe in its just a minute ago.
"Don't judge a book by it's cover".
The apostrophe tells you that the cover belongs to the book.
Another thing though is the apostrophe in don't. Short term of do not but thinking about it their probably should be two apostrophes like do'n't... Boy, now that is getting way too confusing :).
Don't want to get in on this but have to say it's not really the place to comment on grammar. BI and dyslexia go hand in hand, I had it quite severely In the early days, luckily it has settled down. But it could be quite distressing to have mistakes picked up on, especially as they are probably unintentional.
I did already point out about spelling mistakes and BI can't be helped and I am not having a go at anybody for making any spelling mistakes but I was just pointing out how a lot of people, mainly non BI survivors, make a lot of common errors in spelling.
Not trying to correct anyone on here.
It was just, one person's post on here reminded me of a mistake I always see on Facebook.
I have to agree with Janet on this one. Awful spelling and grammar is a part of life in the so called 'normal and healthy' spectrum of society. Innit.
It's just a tad on the thoughtless side to pick up on it when it's a slice of the population who possibly can't help it, or even realise it.
Seriously, lose/loose, their/there/they're, etc, etc, etc, the list is almost endless. If you want to pick up on it, you really need to go into schools and a have a word.
I used to be a fabulous speller - could look at any word and intuitively know if it was spelt rightly or wrongly.It all went to pot 3 years ago after illness and I am forever getting my words underlined by spellcheck on my laptop and having to try several guesses at the correction - sigh of relief when said word is no longer underlined, so must be correct. There are words that I use regularly that I always spell wrong - I can't seem to learn from previous mistakes. I often use out of context words or get letters the wrong way round / miss letters out all together/add an irrelevant letter in or miss whole words out so can empathise with others who struggle in this way. It can take ages to write an understandable post sometimes ! My brain also does 'predictive text' and I read words as others - latest one being 'orange walrus ' on a TV weather report ! I told my partner what I thought I had just seen who informed me that it would most likely have been 'warning' ! : ))
I was lucky to have originally be blessed with an innate gift for spelling and grammar but still consider myself lucky that I can communicate at the level I can : )
One thing I like about the written word is that I don't stutter on paper : )
When I look back on the posts I wrote during my relapse, when I felt really ill, they are full of mistakes.
Given that the poster's first language is not English , they are struggling with BI effects and are currently under a lot of stress, I think they write amazingly well.x
Writing a comment/post on here or email is so much easier than speaking to a person face to face.
If I were told to explain my BI and my experience my nearest Headway branch has done for me then I would most probably completely muck up what I really want to/should say.
But if I was able to write down my experience in an email, say, then I could take as much time as I wanted to say what I really want to say without goofing up.
I think the main thing between the two is time.
I can't always say what I want to say to people because then some conversations might take all day or their may be moments of long pauses where I might stare blankly at there face thinking of what I want to say next :).
Also the trouble with me in conversation is that when two other people are talking and I am also in the convo but mainly listening, if somebody says something that sparks up something I want to say, I usually wait until this person has stopped talking, because it can be rude to butt in on a conversation.
But then I find as soon as this person finishes, the next person starts stright away in response so then I remain quiet until they stop.
This happens most of the time and I can end up forgetting what I was originally going to say.
But I do find sometimes that you have to go outside your boundaries of being rude/polite and just blurt out what you want to say otherwise you could end up being in a conversation without even saying anything haha.
Hey, I was just posting few days ago and the title of my post was "loosing it" so you probably refer to that :). And I did mean "Losing" like "failing to win".
Im a BI plus english is not my first language, and also I have noticed that when I post on forum I do not think much of a grammar rather Im focused on my emotions that I need to release.
Before BI I had a tendency to correct everyone in three different languages but now I realized I make mistakes when Im nervous, tired or anxious. I probably make more mistakes in english now than I ever did. Today I have a good day, so I can say - great, thank for pointing it out (I have checked the dictionary to confirm I was wrong), but there could be some other days when I could say - give me a break, how many languages do you speak? I do not mean to sound offensive and I completely understand the point of your post, but being BI and struggling as I do makes me a bit insensitive.
I probably added an "o" and I just remembered and american comedian on british accents and letter "t". It always makes me laugh
It probably was the title of your post that made me create this post. I hope you know I wasn't trying to correct you in any way but more of the fact that I see the mistake between "loosing/losing" and "pacific/specific" and so on a lot, and it's mainly from people who have not got a brain injury.
I know some might say "So they don't have a brain injury but what if they are dyslexic". I can understand if a person was dyslexic but that would mean most of the people who use facebook are dyslexic.
I don't think anybody needs to think about grammar/spelling mistakes on here or on facebook really, like some people say "It's not a test". I guess it is just me then I suppose. But that's who I am guess, a bit of a grammar nazi :).
I suppose it was just one of those days, sometimes I could be anti on these things, some days "who cares".
The video with the American comedian was funny :).
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