We use two and three letter words all the time in our writing. What may seem like completely insignificant in every day usage, they can actually make or break a writer or a speaker if the wrong two letter word is used. Consider this sentence: "Alicia wanted to go with him after the show." Sounds to me like this Alicia girl friendly with him, whoever he is. But what if I told you that I used the wrong word in that sentence and meant to say "Alicia wanted to go at him after the show." Two completely different meanings of a sentence that only shares one difference; a two letter word.
Consider also a real life example. A few months back, Senator Kerry went under fire for what appeared to be a slam against U.S. troops when he said "... (be sure to get an education) or you'll get stuck in Iraq." Now clearly the senator didn't mean to insult any U.S. Service men or women, but in fact, meant to insult the president. How? Mr. Kerry forgot a simple two letter world, "us." ..."or you'll get us stuck in Iraq." a completely different meaning.
So, in order to write and speak effectively, a writer, or speaker, has to be sure they use the propper words in the proper order. As trivial as that seems, it is very important to remember. Otherwise, you'll be stuck trying to explain yourself over something that generally wouldn't need explaining.
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*Grin.* Yeah, I've read some pretty interesting things over time with missing words, or mistyped words. In class, it's mostly amusing (somebody wrote a paper about Windows and wrote "Widows" all the way through, which changing the meaning of his paper pretty much entirely) but can be more dangerous in work situations...
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