A handicap we must overcome.

This one is dedicated to all you English speakers out there. Before i start,let me just make it clear that i'm not pointing this to any particular person. Second, i know there are bigger problems and worse cases out there, and this ain't even a life-and-death situation, but it does matter. Third, as you're reading this, please just accept it as a process of learning. If you find any error, kindly correct me. I stand corrected. :)

So here goes. Stop using "thats mean" i repeat, STOP USING "THATS MEAN"! Okay, so that was just me, over-reacting. But anyways, do you know what i'm trying to convey a while before? If you do, then that's utterly awesome, but if you don't, then i'm afraid you're one of those error makers. Sorry.

Here's the thing. If you look on facebook, blogs, or other social websites, people tend to say things like "mama dah balik,thats mean i can going out" (fictional status,made up and not meant to offend anyone.sorry.) Now i know it's supposed to be "i can go out" but that's another story. What i'm trying to point is the part where it goes "thats mean i can going out", found the error? No? "THATS MEAN i can going out". Now you see it, don't you?

The thing is that, it should be THAT MEANS. Because if you say THATS MEAN, it does not just changes the meaning, but it also is grammatically wrong. There's no such word as THATS in English, it should either be THAT or THAT'S. Get it?

So if you were to write it as THAT'S MEAN, it would totally change the meaning of the sentence. It would mean that you're saying "that's cruel" because "mean" is a word with two meanings. One being the answer for something and the other being cruel. So if you were to translate "mama dah balik, that's mean i can going out", it would be "mum's home, that's CRUEL i can going out". The mum's back and suddenly she's cruel? The hell?

And well, THATS MEAN just have no particular meaning i could list or elaborate about. So there you have it. A simple post that hopefully would make me stop getting annoyed every single time i hear people saying "thats mean". Don't get me wrong, i get annoyed not because i think my English is ever so perfect that i don't want to hear any mistake, but because it's a mistake that shouldn't be made. If it was made, it should be corrected. Just my thoughts.

Maybe it's not a big deal seeing that no one really cares nor realize it, but seriously, if you're a TESL student, small grammatical errors DO matter. It's a big thing for you to just let pass when you hear someone commit it, what more for you to do it yourself. Awkward, just saying.

Anyway, i've been meaning to tell people of this error, but hey, i can find no gentler way other than through my blog. I can't just go around yelling,"Hey, you're doing it wrong! It's supposed to be THAT MEANS!". That wouldn't be so nice now, would it? So yeah, the next time you're going to say it, say it right.

Thanks for reading, have a great day. :)

p/s: i overused capitalization, i know. and somehow this post doesn't sound much like me.pffft.