So I was doing my normal routines on Twitter and found a cool little phenomenon.

#StrangersThings2 was trending.

And I couldn't figure out why.

About 9 hours before the trend began, the new season of Stranger Things had begun airing on Netflix. About 10 hours after the trend began, there were more than a million tweets with that hashtag and nobody figured they should check to see if it's actually spelled correctly.

Someone started a trend that was wrong and hundreds of thousands of people couldn't tell.

I can't say I'm surprised at this. I personally don't use social media, but then again, I don't really have to, to know just how prevalent this is. What really gets me is the fact that we have so many measures and tools put into place to ensure that our spelling and grammar are correct, yet you still have people misspelling "believe" and misusing simple words like "your" and "you're." And then there's the excessive abbreviating that some people do...

  You may have stubbed your toe on the root of the misunderstanding you were referring to Razor and just as promptly walked right over it without really seeing it.

 Most contractions are not in reality intended to be interpreted as one word. As for the one contraction in semi-formal [with contractions] English that is really just one word, I cannot say enough wonderful things about it so I will therefore decline the mentioning of it.    

 "You're" is two words and not one because the contraction does still represent the two words. Calling it a "contraction word" would be incorrect. Contractions can be one word or more but the numerical quantity of words did not change just because you compacted them for the purpose of eliding ease in print or speech.

 If more people knew what I have just explained to you, the contraction rule would cause less confusion. Ironically, contractions were first conceived to simplify the language and have merely resulted in an extra set of rules needing to be understood.

 Oh. Let us not forget. That is a very interesting observation z-man. Thank you for pointing it out.

 P3 signs off emphatically!!
 

Postman3 :

I think you're examining it beyond the simple point I was trying to make. In linguistic terms, "you're" is a clitic (as all contractions are), meaning that it appears phonetically as one word, but is syntactically two words. If you want to split hairs, it is technically both--it is just a shortened combination of two words into a shorter one, while still representing two words. In my example, I am referring to "you're" as one word, aware of the fact that it is a contraction of "you" and "are." All I was trying to do was illustrate a common example of mismatched/misused words. Perhaps I could've used a better example to do so, but I really didn't foresee it becoming a point of contention.

You should not refer to "you're" as one word. That is what causes people the confusion when they try to use the contraction as such without thinking of it as two words. It may come as a shock to you that you are one of the many young minds that are part of the problem you seek to critique. Change your perception and enlighten others of what I have taught you. Then you will be part of the change in how people tend to think in these terms.

 It is a curiosity to examine the origins of things with a dialogue of how they came to be. If I could stamp out these misconceptions, false histories and errors before they start snowballing in people's minds, I always tell myself that I would do just that. This influence would be a preferable option above letting the errors ride the current course so I and others could have the fine experience of telling people they are wrong without telling them how to fix it.

  You have displayed here a tendency to opt for the second train of thought. What does it matter whether or not you are seen as smarter than these people who mindlessly repeat modelled behaviors without thinking them through? Wouldn't exposing the root of where they went wrong clear up the confusion faster than uncorking a dated bottle of "vitriol" sauvignon to pour all over their website usage?

 It may be that you are criticizing those users too harshly considering what they do not understand and what you have not demonstrated understanding of are one and the same.

  : Are you quite sure a spelling error can fairly be attributed to the practice of combining two words with simply no space between them and flanking them with a numeral and pound sign? Why or why not? Less vitally, can we be sure that the "s" in the centre is intended with an apostrophe or could it perhaps be abbreviating some other notation that the most avid program watchers would be aware of?

 Is this really much different than a fellow such as myself signing off with a number and letter combination like P3 !!! ?

Postman3 : If there was supposed to be something like an apostrophe, it would be at the end of the entire name, not in the middle. By putting anything at all in the middle 100% changes it from what it's supposed to be, because it's not like you're or something similar, it's a noun.

If the name of the Grand Canyon is Grand Canyon, you wouldn't call it the Grands Canyon.

Even with other shows, it would both be wrong and not make sense to say Thes Simpsons or Familys Guy, especially if the correct name has already been established for years.

 There again, you did not display an equivalent example. The equal terminology in that Twitter site you use would be " #GrandsCanyon2 " .  Is a Tweet to be interpreted somehow as formal English to be handed in to your university professor as part of an essay? Why would spelling matter when all other rules of formal English are ignored by the bird brains you are referencing? Why does this spelling blip warrant mentioning when proper spacing and use of numerical symbols are not accounted for to begin with?

   : When you compare two different things using a different length of measuring stick, of course you will find an obvious discrepency in the resulting recorded data. That is how you have set it up to be. Why state the pretense of being confounded when you set the parameters of the program?

 P3

 

Postman3 :


The entire purpose of a contraction is to shorten two words together by omitting a letter. I only refer to "you're" as one word with respect to clitics. I also fail to see how viewing the word "you're" as a clitic-- a word that syntactically functions as a free morpheme, but phonetically appears as a bound morpheme, because it is always pronounced with the proceeding/following word-- is considered a faulty perception. It is a fact. All contractions fall under the umbrella of a clitic (either as enclitics or proclitics). Contracted words count as the number of words they would be if they were not contracted (two in this case).

All I am saying is "you're" acts differently semantically and syntactically. Again, I don't see how any of this is a flawed perception. Elaborate?