One of my pet peeves is seeing incorrect spelling on a website where a professional image is most critical. What really scares me is that fewer and fewer people care enough 
to put the time and expense into making sure their web pages are error free. Errors such as misspellings, typos, grammatical errors, and general bad phrasing of sentences and paragraphs. I think with all the texting on cell phones, iPads, and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, it is common to abbreviate and use popular text speech. This is understandable when you are working with small devices and when making a quick casual comment.
However, for something as important as a website, especially a commercial or professional website, spelling and grammar are more important than some might think. It’s the first thing I notice when I am browsing web pages. Maybe it’s because of what I do for a living, but I’ve definitely seen a decrease in literacy over the years. It surprises me to see a large brand name company with errors in their ads, brochures, TV commercials, and web pages, and I see these more and more every day.
Unfortunately, a spell checker isn’t going to help with grammatical errors, and grammar checkers are not always accurate. For example, the misuse of apostrophes and words such as their, there, and they’re. Other common errors include words such as accept, except; advice, advise; 
affect, effect; complement, compliment; it’s, its; loose, lose; miner, minor; past, passed; principal, principle; stationary, stationery; than, then; threw, through; your and you’re. There are more common mistakes people make, such as seperate instead of separate. Remember, there’s A RAT in the middle of separate. Also, it’s “a lot”, not “alot”. There are to, two, too many to list. These drive me nuts!
There are some that I have trouble with, too, like accommodation and recommendation. Not so easy to remember if there is one c or two; one m or two. Do you remember the famous rule that we were all taught in elementary school, “i” before “e” except after “c”, as in the word “receive”? However, this does not hold true for other words like science or conscience. It’s certainly not a sin to not know the spelling of every word in the English language. However, there is this thing (as archaic as it may sound) called a 
DICTIONARY! There is a great site online that I have bookmarked and pull up regularly when I need a dictionary or thesaurus. The URL is http://www.merriam-webster.com/. How cool is that? You don’t even have to wipe the dust off of your books, it’s right there! The Merriam-Webster Dictionary!
I’m not saying that I’m perfect. I’ve always been a good speller, and I believe it is genetic. Seriously, my two sons have always been good spellers, and it’s not because I pushed them. It just seems to come naturally with some people. And, it has nothing to do with intelligence or success. Some of the smartest and most successful people I know can’t spell worth a darn!
My grammar isn’t perfect, either; I didn’t major in English. In fact, I hated English almost as much as I despised Math. I think that’s genetic, too. I may not be able to diagram a sentence or use quotation marks correctly. I try to use logic when I write. I have a habit of using punctuation the way that I speak. If I pause in the middle of a sentence, I’ll use a comma to represent the pause. However, some sentences should be spoken fluidly without pause. The problem with too many commas is that the writer (me included) attempts to tell the reader where to pause, to take a breath, when they should be able to figure it out for themselves.
Another thing that I see more and more, especially in forums and social network sites, is either too many commas or no punctuation at all. Sentences run on and on and it’s difficult to see when a sentence stops and a new one begins.
Then there is the apostrophe -s. Many people use the apostrophe -s to represent more than one, but that’s not the correct usage. Generally, when you want to show more than one, just add the “s” to the end of the word. For example, do you own one dog or two dogs? The apostrophe -s is usually meant to show possession, not more than one. My dog’s bone is missing.
The rule for the word “it” is treated differently. In fact, it’s opposite. The word “it’s” is a contraction for “it is” and is neither plural nor possessive. The word “its” is possessive for “it”, meaning belonging to “it”. My cat has claws. Its claws are sharp.
There are so many rules for the use of the apostrophe, and many exceptions to the rule. For instance, in many cases there is a different spelling of some words when changing them from singular to plural. For example, more than one monkey is monkeys, but more than one goose is geese; mouse is meese…er mice. Well, you know what I mean. 🙂
Quotation Marks:
Sometimes, I don’t like placing punctuation inside quotation marks; it just doesn’t look right to me. For example, I know that if I’m quoting material or the spoken word, I’ll place the quotes around the entire sentence, after the punctuation. That only makes sense because the punctuation is part of the material being quoted. My mother always said, “Put your coat on before you go outside.”
But when I use quotation marks to set something apart in a sentence, such as a word or title, I’d rather place the punctuation after the quotation marks. The title of my book is “My Dog Lulu”.
While doing some research on this subject I found that in the United States, periods and commas go inside quotation marks regardless of logic. In the United Kingdom, Canada, and places with British education, they are more likely to follow logic. How about that, exactly the way that I’ve always done it, and I am not British.
There are other rules regarding quotation marks, but I just use them the way they make the most sense to me. For example, one shouldn’t use quotation marks to emphasize a word; one should italicize or underline the word instead.
That’s it for now. I’ll probably add more later. Can you think of any that really bug you? Please comment if you do!
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