They're, Their, There

Thank you, sir, I was going to make the same point. Communication is too important in our military to 'almost' get it right. Confusion due to miscommunication costs time, money and, potentially, lives.

Nice! I agree!!

Its important to know the difference. Momma always told me before sending off emails, especially posts in Rallypoint, to always check it's grammar. Their!

PO1 Jacob...LOL

I'm not sure that I could have even FORCED myself to type that! AAAaaaaaarrrrrrggggghhhh! LOL!

That's why I usually go back and reread my emails at least twice before sending it to make sure it is correct both grammatically and with spelling. It only takes a minute to proofread our own work.

"Misuse of words drive me crazy". Col, all due respect, but it is "driveS me crazy ". It's easy to get number confused. What really drives me nuts are the following :

Where are you AT?
The media IS.
The data IS.

The Read Bearon is on the weigh.

I do see it, SGT Richard H.. You violated your own "rule." I've watched your posts and your usually more careful than that. :-)

CW5 (Join to see) Ironically, I had to be even MORE careful to get myself to write like that!

SGT Richard H. and CW5 (Join to see)

Wow, I can't believe you went their. Your carelessness is bothersome.

I have a Masters in Debating, does that count? BIG ba-dum-dum!

masterdebating? oooooooo bad bad bad

If you are planning to transition into the civilian workforce, you must be able to communicate verbally, in writing and in presentations.
If you are not able to communicate both your intent as well as your ideas on the subject, all of your years of expertise and knowledge is not being utilized by you to express yourself.

This is very true 1SG Philips. In the mid to late 80's when I attended the Armor Officer Basic Course and the Armor Advanced Course there was an English class and writing assignments built into the POI. At the time, I thought it was unnecessary and a waste of time. If we did poorly, we had to attend a remedial English class from 0900 - 1200 on a Saturday for several weeks. I am not proud to admit, but I was an attendee of English as a second language during my advanced course. It opened my eyes to the added value of proper written communications. CAS3 was a tremendous help in developing my skills to properly brief. It is too bad CAS3 is gone. However, having raters or senior raters who were West Point English professors was an advantage because I made a game in trying to get memos, SOPs, etc., past them first try. This required me to dig into the grammar books and pay attention to detail. Just like anything else, practice makes perfect. The more you write, the better you become as long as you are receiving credible feedback. Today, because of email, texting and social media in general writing and face to face communicating is becoming an endangered species.

I agree with LTC Gavula. I had NCO's who required junior NCO's to prepare Fragos and then evaluate them to ensure that all areas were covered,and that they were properly prepared. This followed me into my Senior years and on into my civilian profession of Foreign Military Sales. I briefed Sr. Military officers; both ours and foreign.
It was then that I realized that I needed all all of my verbal and written skills to convey my thoughts and requirements in the fielding of major weapon systems to the countries.
If you fail to address all of your military skills and do not excel in both the verbal as well as written skills in presenting your thoughts and processses you are only lessening your chances in current and future postings.

Sweet! I think I've seen that before, but thank you for posting it here, SSG (Join to see).

CPT (Join to see), I agree partially. For some folks it's laziness. For many, though, I would say, it's ignorance of basic grammar and usage. Many people never learned what right looks like in these cases, so they drive on, making mistakes as they go. For me, studying foreign languages was what brought home English grammar and usage. It all became very clear after I learned how to say/write it in French, Polish, and German. Thanks for your response.

1LT (Verify To See), I have many years of experience to just say, I disagree. When I was a young 2LT, platoon leader, the Army had the NCO evaluation form which required raters to write paragraphs on the ratee's performance. I probably had to rewrite 90% of what my NCO's wrote because they did not know how to write. When I was a reviewer as a SCO, I had to kick back many NCOERs because the bullets did not make sense. Now on the civilian side it is better, but I do find myself cringing at some of the things I read. As you stated, laziness is part of it. As Chief stated above about foreign languages, I used my German born wife to proof my written work because her English grammar was perfect.

Originally I am from Italy and I grew up speaking Italian. In Italian, we don't really have words that sound or are written similarly. So there was never a problem. When I learned English, I was made fun of for my ignorance of the words that sound the same but are written differently. The shaming forced me to really practice on getting it right. I think the best way to learn about grammatical errors is to be corrected by people.

CPT (Join to see), very interesting. I learned a lot about English grammar and usage by studying foreign languages. There's a connection there, I'm sure. I didn't understand cases, for example, until I learned the seven or eight cases in Polish. There are essentially three (or four) in English - nominative, accusative, genitive, dative - but I wasn't taught about them, and that was 40 to 45 years ago. Nowadays, I would submit, high school students learn even less.