Are You Making These Common Grammar Mistakes?

As the resident grammar police at Foresite, I’ve made a list of grammar mistakes that people make quite often. Are you making some of them, too?

Your/you’re

Starting off with an obvious one here, but so important. Your is a possessive pronoun used to say things like “Your coat is over there.” You’re is a contraction of the words “you” and “are,” and can be used to say something like “You’re the best.”

Too/to/two

Another obvious one. Here’s how I remember it: too is “too much” because it has an extra O. Two is a number.

Apostrophes

According to Purdue OWL (my grammar best friend), apostrophes are used to form possessives of nouns, show the omission of letters (like contractions) and indicate certain plurals of lowercase letters. One big issue I see all the time is adding just an apostrophe when someone’s name ends in -s. This is incorrect.

Wrong: James’

Right: James’s

The dreaded semicolon

Semicolons are used to separate two independent clauses, which means the two phrases can stand as sentences alone. So, instead of saying, “My professor is intelligent. I have learned a lot from her.” you can say, “My professor is intelligent; I’ve learned a lot from her.”

Who’s/whose

“Who’s” is a contraction for the words “who” and “is,” while “whose” is a possessive pronoun used to say something like “Whose coat is this?”