Kweshuns abeut Sillbish on

I once caught a plagiarizing student (4th time that semester and on an exit exam) because the student not only spelled "unnecessarily" correctly but also punctuated it correctly. I've caught other students because of compound-complex sentences that weren't mixed constructions, scattered with commas or lacking any punctuation. One plagiarized paper spoke about Tupac Shakur in the present tense and not as a typo. But the real thing that gets me are the constant, seemingly ingrained and impossible-to-change errors. Every year the errors get worse and even though I give out a 2-page handout on common errors in general and errors I'd give my oh-so-loved clitoris never to see again, I see over and over and over and over:

• everyday instead of every day
• several used instead of few or many (as in Several people go to my church or Several students go to college every year to earn degrees)
• apart instead of a part
• highschool instead of high school
• bias instead of biased (as in He was bias against our team)
• were mixed up with where (new this year)
• are for or (also new)
• alot
• woman and women used interchangeably (when they are used at all--see next item)
• females instead of women (as in Lots of females get abortions to skip out on their responsibilities)
• than used interchangeably with then
• conscience and conscious (as in He lost conscienceness immediately)
• lose and loose
• accept and except
• religious arguments made without once capitalizing he, his, god or the bible
• your and you're
• using NO apostrophes at all for 3+ pages
• break and brake
• perform and preform (as in There are doctors that preform abortions)
• study's and studies (if apostrophes are used at all)

4/14
trish reminded me of another common error: there, they're and their used interchangably. My students mostly use their for everything. As if a sentence like Their waiting for their luggage to get their makes any damn sense. I could just smack them.