Author: Shay

I’ve been a subscriber to Newsweek for the past 5 years. In the middle of my college years I decided that I needed some way of accessing the news since we didn’t have televisions in our dorms and internet news wasn’t what it is today. If I were able to get a quick snapshot of the week’s news that would be a huge help to me to actually know what’s going on and not feel like I was on an island when it came to current events. Though they’re a pretty liberal publication, I’ve enjoyed having their print edition delivered to me on a weekly basis. It’s been a good way to inform my mind as well as challenge me to be discerning with what’s happening in our world and what people think about it. Obviously (and this is true in general) the news isn’t just simple, objective information anymore. It’s an account of the incident, event, person, idea with commentary by the writer on not just what happened, but how and why. So with that in mind, Newsweek has challenged me to think on my own two feet and not always take the author’s opinions or analysis as fact, but to discern for myself what the issues are.

Unfortunately, with their continued liberal swing it’s been a conversation between my wife and I whether we should continue to pay for their publication. But Newsweek actually helped us make that decision with the publication of their cover story a few weeks back called “Gay Marriage: Our Mutual Joy” The article–which started a lot of conversations among Evangelicals–attempted to argue that the Bible doesn’t teach against gay marriage and those who believe it does may have missed something. I heard about the article before my Newsweek even arrived in my mailbox and upon reading it I realized what all the talk was about–it wasn’t really a news article, it was an opinion piece. Essentially, it was one writer’s opinion on what the Bible says about gay marriage and it really wasn’t well researched. In fact, I would say it was more like a fancy blog post from a professional writer’s website. Nevertheless, for a cover piece it was pretty unfortunate and we decided that wouldn’t renew our subscription to Newsweek. It’s with that in mind that I thought what I read this morning was so interesting.

I came across a New York Times article yesterday titled “Newseek Plans Makeover to Fit a Smaller Audience.” Basically, they are going to re-brand themselves from the inside out by focusing on opinion pieces as opposed to current events, changing the paper type of their printed version, and in general refocus their style and brand to fit their core readers who News claims “…are its best-educated, most avid consumers of news, and who have higher incomes than the average reader.” More than anything, I thought this tidbit from the Times article was telling (my emphasis in bold):

Starting in May, articles will be reorganized under four broad, new sections — one each for short takes, columnists and commentary, long reporting pieces like the cover articles, and culture — each with less compulsion to touch on the week’s biggest events. A new graphic feature on the last page, “The Bluffer’s Guide,” will tell readers how to sound as if they are knowledgeable on a current topic, whether they are or not.

Newsweek is going to teach it’s core, “best-educated” subscribers to fake it. All I can say is: awesome [strong sarcasm]. That’s just what those subscribers want, a cheap way out. Maybe I’m assuming too much, but I would think if I were a higher educated subscriber of Newsweek’s magazine–not to mention a reader–then I’m probably going to take that concept as a hit to my intelligence. Furthermore, the whole change in general is kind of bizzare. For a magazine to go from a sixty six year history of providing the weekly news to an all out opinion piece is pretty sad commentary of our times. I read that as “stop telling them what’s happening and let them think about it for themselves” to “we’ll tell them what we think and how they should think.” I fear that their writing will now become like the gay marriage article I mentioned above, as opposed to a well-researched, balanced jounralism. Change is good, that’s a fact. I understand that weekly news is a little hard to deliver these days as people get the news very quickly. And Newsweek may be having it’s share of struggles as a news company–many are, but this doen’t mean they need to throw their own history out the window and reduce their publication to a bunch of opinions.

I’m tired of this, so I’m forced to finally say something. One of the major problems I have with people and the internet is their use of the English language. Whether it’s on IM, Twitter, Facebook, or in blogging (especially annoying), I see mistakes being made all the time. I’m not sure if it’s that people have gotten lazy, forgotten how to use English, or just never learned to begin with, but I figure we all need a little reminding sometimes. What follows are a few of the common errors I read and hopefully a clear explanation on how to avoid them. Please people, stop looking like idiots.

their, there, and they’re
All three of these words might be pronounced the same, but they are spelled and used very differently. Let me give you some examples:

1. Their car broke down on the side of the road.
2. Their car broke down over there.
3. They’re going to take their car over there to get fixed.

The word their in sentence #1 is a possessive pronoun which reveals ownership (or describes the noun). In this case the noun is the word “car”, so who’s car is it? It’s their car!

The second there in sentence #2 is an adverb which describes the location. Where is their car? It’s over there! NOTE: This word is also commonly used to “…introduce a sentence in which the verb comes before its subject.” For instance: There was no place to park the car.

The first they’re in sentence #3 is a contraction meaning “they are”. Therefore, “they’re [they are] going to take the car over there to get fixed.”

Test your knowledge by taking this simple test and see if you can distinguish which “there” is there! (my score was 100%! yippeeee!)

to vs. too
This one kills me! Just by adding an extra letter “o” you make yourself look like an idiot and you just don’t have to. Some examples should help clear things up:

1. I want to go to the park.
2. I want to go too.
3. We had too much fun at the park.

The first sentence employs the normal usage of the word to and is most common.

Sentence #2 uses the word too to say “also” or “as well”. It could be written, “I want to go also.”

Sentence #3 uses the word too (though same spelling) quite differently. It is stating that they had an “excess” amount of fun at the park. Another example could read, “We had too much ice cream.” You can never have “to much” of something, you can only have too much.

Note: I feel sad that I have to say this, but if ever read a sentence using “two” for too or to, I will immediately stop reading anything you’ve written and put my head in a bucket of ice.

are vs. our
Finally, two that just never seem to go away: are and our. The confusion here (like the others above) is that they are pronounced the same, but have different spellings and very different meanings. Again, some examples for the confused:

1. We are going to visit shaycam.com every day now.
2. Our favorite website on the planet is shaycam.com.

The first sentence uses are as a verb (specifically, the present tense form of the verb “to be”). You never “our” going to visit shaycam, but you are going to visit every day!

The second sentence uses our which is the possessive form of “we”. Think of it like “yours, mine, and ours” which suggests that shaycam.com is not just your favorite, or my favorite, but it’s our favorite site!

As Bill Nye would always say, “Did you know that?…WELL NOW YOU KNOW!” Now get it out there and tell everyone that they’re never going to get these mistakes right unless they too make their favorite site shaycam.com–it’s our only hope!