Dear Holly,
The other day, my fiancee sent me an email where she confused ‘your’ and ‘you’re’ and then used an apostrophe for ‘its’ in the possessive sense. When I confronted her she seemed to think it was no big deal, but I am seriously thinking of calling off the wedding. The thought of marrying such a callous simpleton is too much to bear, but it would be rather a shame as she does have a magnificent pair of diddies. What would you do?
Paul,
Northampton
Dear Paul
Fortunately, these days the school curriculum is less focused on grammar and arithmetic and more on expressing happy feelings with plasticine and learning about evolution without offending God or Allah. Plus it’s much more important to my generation to be able to evade a CCTV camera after a heavy looting session than to understand how to correctly use an apostrophe, and knowing how to spell ‘necessary’ is not going to help you escape the filth after mugging a granny, now is it? I’d get rid of the dictionary, stop being such a pedant and buy your girlfriend a nice, cosy balaclava for Xmas.
Hope that helps!
Holly
