there vs their vs they're

[Andromeda18_]

I'm so happy to find that I'm not the only person who hates how lazy people posting in forums have become. This is something that has been driving me crazy for quite some time. I find that I tend to lower my opinion of people who can't handle basic grammar issues when they post. I do allow more leeway for people who speak English as a second language but they are actually better at constructing sentances than most Americans (and some Canadians ;-P).

I speak for myself when I say that I'm careful about what I write because my teachers forced me to do so. My English teachers were British and although they were really nice people they were rather strict about grammar and spelling mistakes. Anyway, in order to pass my Cambridge exam I couldn't make any mistakes so I had to be really careful about that. However, I do understand why native speakers aren't as picky about it. I don't usually make any mistakes in Portuguese either but many Portuguese native speakers do. There's nothing wrong with writting "they're" instead of "their" once in a while but some people here do that all the time.