I am talking about stuff like principle/principal, its/it's, your/you're, effect/affect.
Can I correct these things even though the meaning of the question/answer is clear?
Would it come across as rude, or as an "overkill"?
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1$\begingroup$ As a US English native speaker you may be used to homonyms, but many other native speakers and ESLers may not, and it can be very confusing for them if not corrected. Especially There vs. Their vs. and They're. $\endgroup$– Peter MortensenCommented Jun 21, 2020 at 10:18
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3$\begingroup$ I am neither a US English speaker nor a native English speaker. But OK. $\endgroup$– SuperCiociaCommented Jun 24, 2020 at 4:25
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2 Answers
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Even if it is by a small amount, corrections like these still improve the clarity of the post. However, I would encourage you to follow the advice of the help page, and look to see if there are any other problems you can correct while you are editing.
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1$\begingroup$ Relevant: meta.stackexchange.com/q/23869. Also it might be worth mentioning that some people will complain about edits anyway, possibly calling them rude or inappropriate or morally wrong - generally newer members who aren't familiar with how SE sites work. $\endgroup$– David Z ModCommented Jun 18, 2020 at 21:41
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4$\begingroup$ What about Tiny, trivial edits are discouraged? $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 18, 2020 at 22:03
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9$\begingroup$ @BioPhysicist The linked help page explicitly supports fixing grammatical errors. My reading of the sentence you excerpt is that editors should fix all of a post's grammatical errors in one go, rather than in a string of one-character edits. You could plausibly argue that fixing a single "you'r" is a trivial edit, but I don't think you could argue against fixing four of them. $\endgroup$– rob ModCommented Jun 19, 2020 at 4:20