and rather than pull a Hunter S. Thompson, I'll entertain with an adorable story about my four year old son.  This morning on our way to school, I looked in the rear view mirror and noticed that he was scowling.  I asked him what was wrong, preparing myself for some wailing about not wanting to go to school.  I was pleasantly surprised when he told me that he didn't want Meri (the college - small division 2 school in our hometown - girl who picks him up and takes him to afterschool) to pick him up anymore.  Now, up to this point, he has been in love with Meri, and I couldn't imagine what she had done in the one week since Christmas break to tarnish his impression of her.  So, expecting the worse, I asked why.  His response, "She told me she likes Auburn and was glad they won the national championship game."

I know it has been some time for the majority of us since 9th grade grammar, but there are some mistakes that I thought we might remedy with a little refresher.  I have noticed the following mistakes on here (granted I see these mistakes when reading lawyers’ briefs as well, but really, we are better than MS attorneys, right?).  Obviously we could all pick up on the mistakes in Burton’s rant, and I know that some of y’all (notice it is a conjunction for you all, i.e., y’all not ya’ll) were, in that thread, making mistakes intentionally, e.g., menny and our vs. are, but I have seen all of the following and they distract me.

Loose vs Lose - Hopefully we won’t lose a game this season because we play loose on defense.

You’re vs your - Overheard during the first half in our house on Saturday, “You’re not going to want to go in there son, Mama just threw your football at the TV.”

It’s vs Its - It’s not fun having to deal with poor first half play or its resulting meltdown in the game thread

They’re, there and their - On Alabama’s defense - They’re improving with experience, and have had some big plays here and there, but it would be nice if their play was more consistent.

Effect vs Affect - Our blitzing has been able to affect opposing quarterbacks when the game is on the line, hopefully our pass rush continues to have this effect for the rest of the season.

The following are not proper words: alot (people make this mistake a lot), anyways, irregardless

To vs Too - To say that our offense looked a little off during the first half on Saturday, might be putting it too lightly. Our defense looked a little off, too.  Thank goodness they redeemed themselves in the last two quarters.

Past vs passed - Gmac was able to put his poor first half play in the past and passed beautifully the second half.  Mark passed a lot of defenders on his way to the end zone.

Know, now and no - I know that we are happy about the Arkansas win now, but there is no way we can squeak by with that kind of play all season.

Sense vs Since - I get the sense that some people are getting tired of the negativity about the defense, but it’s hard to expect anything short of perfection when that it what we have experienced since the end of 2007 (Please note that I have an idealized memory of the pervious two seasons that you are not allowed to tarnish with any mention of 08 post season losses, or 09 close calls).

Hear vs Here - I hear that Saban won’t be here long; of course, we know this is nonsense.  

I recognize that commas and when to use me and I can be confusing (when in doubt please use me) and punctuation mistakes really don’t bother me, but some of the usage mistakes make me cringe a little. Off my soap box now.