Shock and awwww!

I've been trying. Really. I've been trying so hard to sit idly by and whistle nonchalantly while the English language is heinously misused. Please, if you make these mistakes, do yourself and everyone else a very small favor and just don't anymore. It's that easy. I'm going to post this, and some people will think I'm a pretentious ass for daring to insinuate that they aren't intelligent. So be it. With the ubiquitous proliferation of the internet, someone has to take the blame for trying to keep some semblance of sanity in written communication.

1. Awe versus aw

This one is simple. Awe is a noun that describes a feeling of reverence. Reverence! Like the fear of God! You use this word when you talk about that feeling you get when you look up at the towering majesty of a skyscraper or when you think of the beauty of a Beethoven symphony. This word should almost never come up in casual conversation between friends or on Facebook status comments. Use sparingly.

Aw (also spelled aww, or awww, or awwww, etc.) is an interjection¹ that expresses sympathy or disbelief. It's what you say when your friend tells you his cat died. You can smile and/or laugh when you say aw, often when the situation is comical and has only a mildly negative outcome, like when someone tries to buy you a can of pop and the vending machine eats his dollar. In fact, the more severe the outcome, the less appropriate aw becomes.

Try this on for size: "My grandparents were killed yesterday in a horrible plane crash." "Awwww." ← Not appropriate. The outcome is way too severe. You need to choose other words and convey some genuine sympathy.

Also not appropriate: "My laptop got a virus and I lost all the progress I made on my research paper last night." "Awe." ← Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Another common usage of aw is as a sign of affection for something endearing or sentimental, like a new baby kitten. It's often followed by "that's so sweet" or "how adorable".

"I knitted you this scarf."
"Aw, how sweet of you!"

Hint: 9 times out of 10, guys, you really want aw, not awe.

2. 've versus of

This one is a little more tricky. We're all familiar with contractions, like do not becomes don't, are not becomes aren't, and so on. When you add have to another verb like should or could or would, and then add another verb like seemed or tasted or been afterward, you get familiar phrases like "should have seemed happy" or "could have tasted better" or "would have been wonderful". These should all make sense because we've been saying these things all our lives. When these are shortened to contractions, they become would've and should've and could've.

"You should've been there!"
"I could've stopped by, I suppose."
"It would've been great!"

That's right. It's not should of and could of and would of. Why is it not shuld of and could of and would of? Because, not only does it not make much sense, it doesn't actually mean anything! Of is a preposition that indicates derivation or inclusion. It is always followed immediately by a noun (or perhaps an adjective that describes the forthcoming noun).

I'm quite certain that the confusion arises from the existence of the colloquial phrases kind of and sort of. These are adverbial phrases that don't do much except set up a condition, be it a verb or an adjective, that is of uncertain accuracy. It's the easily discernible difference between hungry and kind of hungry.

"I'm kind of excited about the party."
"It would've been nice to get an invitation."
"You're sort of bitter about that, huh?"
"She should've known better."

It doesn't help that Cormac McCarthy writes entire novels that gleefully break this one. You should know that he's deliberately using it to illustrate dialectal speech patterns of less educated persons, not correct usage. Perhaps he should of known better.

3. Definitely versus ???

Now this one is ridiculously easy. It's definitely. Not definately, or definataly, or difinatly, or jesus I don't even know how many variations there are. I've seen this word misspelled more often than any other word, ever. I'm not exaggerating, either. The occasional misspelled word or typo is completely fine, I do it frequently enough myself. We all do; it's inevitable. But this one is a like a plague or flu that has spread beyond control into the dark, vast reaches of the internet.

Listen, if you've been spelling this wrong, just look it up, acknowledge to yourself that you spelled it wrong all those years on Facebook and MySpace and Twitter, accept it, and then spell it right. Suddenly you look much more intelligent and people care what you have to say! Except for people who swear it's definately, who will just be confused. Let them.

¹ Interjection is a fancy word for "nothing at all really". It's an isolated word that generally conveys emotion and has no grammatical function.