Crazy English: How to Make Your Posting Sound Professional

So, you've taken your great life's experiences and put them together in a steemit posting, and you want it to stand out above all the other thousands. One good key to consider is the use of proper punctuation and grammar. This may sound intimidating, but if you follow a few simple rules, you will be on your way to a professional post.

Is it ITS or IT'S?

I see this all the time on otherwise intelligent posts. It can be confusing, because normally, apostrophe s means possession. As in, you might say, "This is my daughter's tree." You would not, however, say, "She is it's human."

IT'S ALWAYS MEANS "IT IS"!

You would not say, "She is it is human." That is not a sentence, but that's what the previous sentence means.

You should write the sentence as, "She is its human."

I, ME, or MYSELF?

I see this wrong EVERYWHERE!
For some reason, people seem to be afraid to use the word "me," as though to do so makes them sound ignorant. So instead, they use the word "myself'" as a supposedly safe replacement. They end up just plain wrong. (Sorry, I'm not normally even kind of judgemental, but bad grammar on national TV and published books is cringing!)

When do you use these personal pronouns?
Consider this:

"I" is a subject. That means, it does something.
"I go to the store with Charles."

"Me" is an object, that is, things are done to it.
"Charles goes to the store with me."

Neither of these changes with the addition of "and," though for some reason, people think that somehow adding "and" changes the subject or object of a sentence.

"Charles and I go to the store with you" is correct.
"You go to the store with Charles and I" is embarrassingly wrong. You would not say "You go to the store with I," so why would you say "...with Charles and I"?

"You go to the store with Charles and myself" is even worse and makes me want to scream whenever I hear someone say something so awful. And yet it's all over TV. I just heard Megatron say it to one of the Deceptacons on the show Transformers: Prime. Great show, but its writers need to go back to English class.

Why are people so afraid to use the word ME?

You should say, "You go to the store with Charles and me."
You might also say, "You go to the store with me."

If you are so hung up on using "myself" in a sentence, try this:

"I go to the store by myself."

EVERY TIME "MYSELF" IS USED, IT MUST BE REFERRING TO "I" OR "ME" SOMEWHERE ELSE IN THE SENTENCE!
It never should be used as a replacement for "me."

This is called a reflexive pronoun, meaning it "reflects" back on itself.
(See, "itself" refers back to "it.")

This is true for yourself, himself, herself, etc.

One final thing I'll cover in this post is punctuation. Where should periods be placed?

Periods should always be at the end of a sentence (obviously). But if that sentence ends in a quote, the period ALWAYS is inside the quote.

"Charles went to the store."
Not "Charles went to the store".

This is not always true with question marks or exclamation points.
Take this example:

Did Charles say, "The dog is gone"?

Note, Charles didn't ask a question, you did when you asked what he said.

And, heavens, if you end a quote in a question, you don't need another punctuation!

Charles said, "Did the dog run away?".
This is incorrect. There is no need for the period, since there is a question mark. It is redundantly redundant and should be avoided.

If you follow these simple rules, you can cut out most grammar mistakes.
And if you have any grammar questions, I'm always excited to discuss them. Just throw your questions in the comments!

Also, don't forget, you can send me your article at ghostwriter@mailinator.com
If our team likes it, I will edit it, post it, and help it get the recognition it deserves. You keep the SBD. (Please, nothing violent or NSFW. I run a family show here!)

Images courtesy of:
Stephanie Thomas
Pintrest