Non-native English Nazi:
A proponent of proper usage of English, who themselves are not a native English-speaker. By coincidence, Nazis were not native English speakers either, so probably "Nazi" already explains everything

Who I am:
I'm not a native English speaker. No, sir. I haven't even ever been to England or America or Australia or anywhere which English descended from England.

What this is:
This is an extremely pedantic rant made by someone with no authority whatsoever in the subject.

Why I made this:
Because I'm bored and have nothing to do. Also, like they say: haters gonna hate, ranters gonna rant.

The rant:

Welcome to English Course 101 made by yours truly.

This is a bunch of irresponsible tips to make sure you, and people you speak/write to, both have a nice, good English experience. Not the best, not even perfect, but good enough.

Disclaimer:
This post was made with a smartphone on mobile forums. As such, there is bound to be typos, wrong word choices, etc etc etc. Grammar Nazis are welcome to point out problems, fellow Nazis are always welcome. Just remember: no guarantee on repairs.


1) Learn your homonyms
We humans were speakers first, writers later. With the exception of mute people, we usually communicate verbally. As English improves, so does its collection of homonyms: words that SOUND similar, but have entirely different meanings

A recent example I encountered is confusing 'peek' with 'peak'. The former is "taking a look", while the latter is "the top-most, the apex". Making sure that you don't confuse the two, especially if either has a specific context in their usage, ensures nobody gets confused and everybody have a great time

2) Get your "you're" right
Do you see what I did there?

Many a forum I have joined, and many a poor sod I have witnessed confusing the two. What the reason is I don't know, because this time both are not homonyms of each other. Not strictly anyway.

'Your' is what you use when you want to refer something as the possession of someone
"You're" is actually a compound of TWO words: 'you are', which is what you say when you want to cast someone as having a certain trait

3) It's a university
And NOT 'an' university.
Many people use the simple rule: "if it's before either 'a' or 'i' or 'u' or 'e' or 'o', then it's an 'an'".

No, it's not. The correct rule is "if it's before something that you pronounce without consonant, use 'an', otherwise use 'a'"

The most common problem is the fact that 'u' is considered a vowel, so it stands to reason that it follows the same rule other vowels have: use 'an'. In practice, there is no 'University', but rather, 'Youniversity'

You pronounce 'u' as 'you', which starts with consonant 'y' (which starts with consonant 'w', but that's for another pedantic rant, if I'm willing). So, you don't use 'an', but use 'a'.

So, it's an apple
But it's not an university
It's a university, a uniform, a usage manual.

That is all I have for now. Now that I think about it, it should be "English Course 3" because I certainly don't have 101 rants in this, but I'm too lazy to edit it out relative to typing this paragraph

I rarely use the You're thing. And well my grammar is bad,But people understand me,And where are you from OP? When i read your username i say Rastl?s P or it reminds me of it,From sweden like me?

and i havent been outside scandinavia,Havent really talked to an english speaking person irl,well i have in online games and such but..

http://www.allproudamericans.com/why-english-is-hard-to-learn.jpg

It would make more sense if you used the term "English fascist," as the ideology better applies to this context than does National Socialism, or even more appropriate: "English conservative." The Nazi's burned books on the liberal arts, for example, and the fascists didn't much care about them either. As orderly as the Nazi soldiers were in parade, the party structure and leadership was chaotic at best, so I just don't get the relevance. Seems more like a derogatory than anything else.

To, too, and two are also annoying when they aren't used correctly.

This "rule" also has its exceptions, most notably with words beginning with "h". For instance, all of the following are acceptable: "an hypothesis / a hypothesis", "an historic(al) occasion / a historic(al) occasion", "a habitual smoker / an habitual smoker", etc. Of course the acceptability varies among speakers and regions (for instance, I think "an" before words beginning with "h" tends to be more acceptable among American English rather than British English).

In general: linguistic prescriptivism and the notion of "proper English" has a very bad track record. It is not taken seriously by linguists. Linguists are in the purely descriptive business of systematising the conventions of a language and its use. This is quite different from a misguided normative project of setting out the "rules for proper usage".