I see college students making the same mistakes over and over, so I have to speak up.

Than/then: Then is used for sequential events. Than is used for options.
"I did the lab assignment, then the homework, then took the quiz."
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"
"I'd rather go to the mall than go to school."

Affect/effect: Affect is the verb, effect is usually a noun. A flat tire will affect the handling of your car, or will have an effect on the handling of your car. Effect can also be a verb, meaning to cause or create, as in, "Some people, in order to effect a change in Washington, voted for Obama, but so far it has had no effect."

Their. I'm an English purist, and even though "their" has been used as a singular pronoun of indeterminate sex for almost 500 years, it still sounds wrong to me. I don't like it, and I correct it when I see it.

The use of apostrophes in plurals. This one just plain drives me up a tree in short order. Apostrophes denote missing letters or show possession, NOT plurals.

Calling * an asterik. There's another s in there. It's asteriSk.

Aks, as in "Can I aks you a question?" (I always reply, "you just did"). An axe is used to cut trees. You ask permission to cut the tree down.

Ect. When did our English teachers become so ignorant that they can't teach students that etc. stands for "et cetera" (and so on) in Latin. Who started this "ect" thing? He/she needs to be hauled out and shot in the pencil case.

Complimentary/Complementary: Complimentary means free. ComplEmentary means two things that accent each other, such as "A knife and a fork are complementary utensils."

Stationery/Stationary: I saw an "educated" person misuse this one. A stationery store is where you buy stationery, also known sometimes as a stationer. The store itself, since it does not move, is stationary.

The -able/-ible suffixes. The rule I remember from grade school is that if it's a verb involving action or motion, its "-able", as in "movable" or "drivable". If it does not directly connote motion, then it's "-ible", as in "collectible" or "legible".

"seperate". Always remember there is "a rat" in the middle of "separate", whether a verb or an adjective.

elementary/alimentary: Alimentary deals with eating and digestion. Everything else is probably elementary.

Me vs. I. One of my former students threw up pictures on Facebook entitled "Ericka and I". This is wrong. Would you say "I" or "Me"? Now put Ericka back in the picture and the answer is the same. "Ericka and me". Ericka and I would be propoer if they were the subject of a sentence, but the implied sentence on the photo caption is "[There are photos of ] Ericka and me."

Rant du jour - the phone company

I won't mention the phone companies except that it consists of three letters joined by an ampersand and has been around practically since there have been phones.

Whenever I want to pay my bill or ask a question of the company, I have to call up and go through the voice response unit, the VRU.

The company has a problem with this thing in that it cannot understand the plain vanilla Great Midwest Accent, you know, the one that all the anchors speak on the news, that is spoken from Ohio to Kansas, etc., the American accent that is the lack of an accent. I don't have a speech impediment, but I cannot understand why the stupid thing cannot understand when I say "414" it hears "404". I've tried talking in a normal tone of voice, I've tried enunciating. To no avail. Sooner or later my accent throws the stupid thing off and I end up getting connected to a person.

Then they charge ME $5 because THEIR machine doesn't work!

I've complained and complained to the person at the other end. They always say they'll pass it along, but nothing ever happens. And now I know why. Remember that $5 charge to talk to a person?

If AT&T (oops!) has a VRU that doesn't work worth a damn, why would they fix it? That would cost money (but their programmers are on salary, right?) and then they'd lose out on all those $5 charges when people DON'T have to talk to a real live person (and they're paying those people whether the phone rings or not, right?)

I guess their attitude is showing: We're the phone company and we will because we can!

It's time for me to vote with my feet and get someone whose VRU can understand a Midwest accent. I've about had enough of lousy service.