American English: not quite as dead as Latin, but at least as dead as a zombie.

Okay, writers-in-arms; we need to talk. I spend most of my time editing other people’s work, and I have come to the conclusion that we (as in Americans) are incredibly irresponsible with the English language. If you are in college or, god forbid, writing professionally, you should understand the basic format of a sentence and, at minimum, the basic tenets of grammar. In case you missed that boat, here's a quick run-down of ubiquitous mistakes that drive me bonkers.

- Just because you’re in your last year of school and are clearly Teh Shiz, being a Senior does not give you the right to capitalize your school year. Most scientific words do not deserve the honor of a capital letter, either, no matter how important you think Xylem and The Water Cycle are.

- "Your" is possessive. If your you're looking for a word to go before “uninformed,” try “you’re.” It’s a highly useful conjunction of “you are.”

- A comma is not a period, if the next clause is a separate thought with its own subject and verb, then using a comma is WRONG.

- Subjects should agree in number with their objects.

- There and their: They’re NOT interchangeable!

- There’s definitely no such word as “deffinately.”

- Punctuation goes INSIDE "quotation marks"!

Don’t tell me “its alright.” We are witnessing the disintegration of the English language, and it's definitely not all right.