User:ArielGold

A long time contributor to Wikipedia, I just got around to actually creating an account.

If I could get a job going around the web correcting spelling and grammar, I would. I personally feel the single most important gift we can give our children is that of literacy, and I'm appalled at the growing trend of children (and even adults) who simply have no concept of correct grammar, or spelling in the world today. "Web-Speak" seems to have infected every corner of the internet, including sadly, Wikipedia, and people simply seem to not care anymore. I've found so many basic, third-grade grammatical errors lately that it makes me want to weep.

As for my personal interests, I have a deep interest in Astronomy, and NASA is my browser's home page.

I've worked in a variety of areas, mostly in medicine, from ICUs and ERs to outpatient clinics or offices, but like many in medicine, I got burned out and depressed at the sheer amount of deaths I couldn't prevent, and frustrated with the insurance system and constant tug-of-war to get treatment for patients who were not considered "financially respectable". I've "retired" from medicine, and now I spend my time doing some graphic design, writing for a variety of web sites, and contributing to sites such as Wikipedia.

If you are contributing to this encyclopedia, please learn proper grammar and check your spelling in a spell-checker.

The following list shows the most common errors and mistakes made throughout the Internet, and here on Wikipedia:

Its/It's
There/They're/Their
Then/Than
We're/Were
You're/Your
Effect/Affect
That/Which
Accept/Except

Please, please, if you do not know the correct usage, read this list of frequently misused English words

If you can't find your issue, simply go to Google and type in the two (or more) words that you are confused about, and you'll find several sites that will explain the proper usage and grammatical rules.

For the most part, I dedicate my submissions to finding and correcting these errors, and doing minor edits to articles for clarification. I believe an encyclopedia should never have grammatical or spelling errors, ever, but Wikipedia gets over 500 submissions every few minutes, and it is nearly impossible to keep up.

I can just hope, that this trend of bad grammar and the "who cares" attitude will some day turn around, and people will once more take pride in using correct English and grammar, and take the time to think before they type.