How scary are your grammar errors?
Wait! What? You want me to look afraid?
If you care about your integrity and the brand you’re creating online and locally, you’ll cringe when you do a shameless self-promotion announcement and later learn that your content contains glaring errors!
Do You Get Easily Embarrassed When Publishing Your Words Online?
Picture a moment when you’ve added a comment to an online blog post pointing out that the blog content contained grammar and spelling errors and you’ve suggested that the OP would do well to hire an editor for his posts. [That, in itself is a bold move, but what happens next is embarrassing.]
Do you really want a pingback to your post comments?
Getting notified when others respond to a thread you’re following is common. But, how embarrassing is it when someone calls YOU out on grammatical and spelling errors in the comments you originally submitted? Wait! What?
How Do You Respond or Do You Respond?
So, you’ve outed a blog poster on grammatical errors, but then someone points a finger at your post and exposes TO THE WORLD that you have errors in your post as well. How does that make you respond? Or, do you respond?
Maybe I should clarify that last statement. If you’re human, you have already responded, both emotionally and mentally in the solitude of your domain, but when you re-read the *jab* some stranger just injected into your calm moment about YOUR writing…<sigh>
Truth is, you did the same thing to the OP, right? So, come on, you’re saying, tell me what the words are. I’m done reading this post.
Can’t Wait any Longer for the Four-Letter Word Confusion?
Two words, both containing four letters but with only three letters in common that turn writers’ and readers’ worlds upside down—Then and Than!
This is worse than the their/there/they’re wars we’ve all read about. This, then, is more important than the other mistakes we made back then, right?
Now do you understand the difference between then and than?
Get this right, and your writing will improve 100%.
If, after reading the definitions of then and than below, you still have concerns and want your writing professionally improved, submit your document to a WordsRU editor and let that person worry about it! I’m done! Give me your comments! I’m ready!
ANSWER TO THE INITIAL QUESTION IN THE POST TITLE
The way to keep the pair straight is to focus on this basic difference: than is used when you’re talking about comparisons; then is used when you’re talking about something relating to time.
Then
Then—the option to choose when time is involved. This fits in the phrases just then and back then, and after words like since and until. It’s also in the phrases and then some, every now and then, and even then.
Than
Than is the word to choose in phrases like smaller than, smoother than, and further than. And it’s the word that follows other, rather, less, and more.
Feel free to comment on this blog post
I’m human! I make errors! Don’t shoot the messenger. Hire a competent WordsRU editor right NOW!
