I'm not a grammar Nazi, but...

[Torrasque]

...it still bothers me when people mispell words that are really easy to get right.
I understand if someone makes a mistake because they are hasty, or because they simply mistyped, but when someone continuously spells words that a 5th grader would know, I have a hard time listening to their arguments and opinions.

Whether you are a full blown grammar Nazi or not, I am sure there are some errors people make, that bother you.
What are some that really grate your cheese?

Edit: After reading your replies, I see that some of you have misunderstood what I meant when I said "I am not a grammar Nazi, but..." so I shall clarify. What I mean, is I won't take apart a person's post looking for every single error, I won't scream in frustration that they used a word in the wrong context, and I won't disregard their entire post because they spelled definitely wrong. For the most part, I let most errors slide so long as they still make sense, and are not the majority of the post.
The "but" part, is where I mean to say these errors still annoy me a bit. Not grab a torch and burn down the village mad, just "well that isn't right =/" annoyed.

 

[baconsarnie]

Consistency, some words seem to have extra letters whilst others have some missing.
*rage*

 

[Jake0fTrades]

I agree completely. Is't jsut plane rydikuloos.

 

[Owen Robertson]

You know what bothers me? When someone says improper spelling bothers them when they can't spell misspell. Just kidding but not really.

 

[MegatonDesign]

Whether you are a full blown grammar Nazi or not, I am sure there are some errors people make, that bother you.
What are some that really grate your cheese?

Putting an extra comma in a sentence where it isn't needed...

 

[Magicmad5511]

Annoys me a bit. A while back someone posted a Doctor Who thread and spelled "Angels" as "Anjels" throughout. That annoyed me and made me take his argument less seriously.

It also annoys me when people just completely forget about punctuation. Without punctuation it becomes very difficult to understand. Recently(today actually) a friend of mine on Facebook wrote an entire paragraph about football and it didn't contain a single piece of punctuation.There weren't even full stops between sentences. It was ridiculous.

I won't correct people(unless it is seriously wrong and I disagree with them anyway)but it still annoys me.

 

[b3nn3tt]

To be honest, I can forgive most things. I do cringe a little when I see people using the wrong word or punctuation, but I don't feel the need to quote them just to correct them on the issue.

That being said, I do hate it when I see apostrophes used when making a word a plural, and I also hate it when people confuse homophones, because the vast majority are extremely easy to remember. They're, their and there are completely different words and the differences are easy to see. Similarly, your and you're, I find it difficult to see how people can mix thos two up. Also, affect and effect; it bugs me when people mix the two up. One is a verb and the other is a noun, learn the difference.

As I said though, I tend to keep these concerns to myself. Apart from in this post, where I have obviously shared them with anyone who reads this.

EDIT: Also, then and than. I don;t have any idea how people mix these up, as they don't even sound the same and have entirely different meanings.

EDIT THE SECOND: And, 'should of'. It's should have. This especially annoys me when people write it, because the shortened version is should've, which should give people a clue as to what the extended version would be.

 

[TrevorGruen]

Whats wrong with being a grammar Nazi? If you don;t want to sound like an idiot (internet excluded) learn to spell!

 

[lobster1077]

I never asked for this. Really though being a literature student one does notice errors quite a bit, it can be quite jarring at times.

 

[Genixma]

...it still bothers me when people mispell words that are really easy to get right.

Incidentally misspell is the most misspelled word.

 

[Phlakes]

Definitely.

It's not definately. It's not definatly. And HELL FUCKING NO, it is SO NOT 'DEFIANTLY'.

I'll leave you with a quote that does not reflect my views or opinions- "If you spell 'definitely' with an 'a', you're definitely an asshole."

Also, this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.302051-ITT-a-Grammar-Nazi-on-common-grammar-mistakes] and this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.303246-ITT-a-Grammar-Nazi-on-MORE-grammar-mistakes].

 

[Laxman9292]

Whether you are a full blown grammar Nazi or not, I am sure there are some errors people make, that bother you.
What are some that really grate your cheese?

Putting an extra comma in a sentence where it isn't needed...

Hey hey! Oxford commas are perfectly legitimate forms of punctuation and I always use them. Personally, I hate when people use "1337" or texting abbreviations. Especially now that most phones have a full qwerty keyboard there is no excuse to abbreviate words like you, later, are, and too. <--- See? Oxford commas!

EDIT: Oh never mind, I see what you did there. Hahaha

 

[Torrasque]

Whether you are a full blown grammar Nazi or not, I am sure there are some errors people make, that bother you.
What are some that really grate your cheese?

Putting an extra comma in a sentence where it isn't needed...

...it still bothers me when people mispell words that are really easy to get right.

Incidentally misspell is the most misspelled word.

Glad someone caught these

 

[dyre]

A pet peeve of mine is the misspelling of "paid" as "payed," but I can usually tolerate bad spelling. You say it's annoying when people misspell words that a 5th grader would know, but it's possible that many people on the internet are indeed below the 5th grade.

 

[Torrasque]

Annoys me a bit. A while back someone posted a Doctor Who thread and spelled "Angels" as "Anjels" throughout. That annoyed me and made me take his argument less seriously.

It also annoys me when people just completely forget about punctuation. Without punctuation it becomes very difficult to understand. Recently(today actually) a friend of mine on Facebook wrote an entire paragraph about football and it didn't contain a single piece of punctuation.There weren't even full stops between sentences. It was ridiculous.

I won't correct people(unless it is seriously wrong and I disagree with them anyway)but it still annoys me.

Oh god, whenever I see that someone has written a long paragraph without any periods or commas, I tend to disregard anything they have to say in their horrible abomination of a paragraph.

Definitely.

It's not definately. It's not definatly. And HELL FUCKING NO, it is SO NOT 'DEFIANTLY'.

I'll leave you with a quote that does not reflect my views or opinions- "If you spell 'definitely' with an 'a', you're definitely an asshole."

Also, this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.302051-ITT-a-Grammar-Nazi-on-common-grammar-mistakes] and this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.303246-ITT-a-Grammar-Nazi-on-MORE-grammar-mistakes].

I used to spell it as definately, but when I realized I was always spelling in wrong, I became a zealot for notifying everyone who spells it wrong, that they are spelling it wrong.
Actually, its one of the few things I correct others on, and am honestly trying to help.

 

[Ravnican]

This bothers me a lot. Specially when it's their own language they're misspelling (my first language is Spanish).

 

[J4RD]

It kills me a little inside every time I see someone confuse "your" and "you're". Same goes for "their" and "they're". My grammar isn't perfect 100% of the time, and I understand that everyone's human, but this is the easy stuff. It just makes you look trashy.

 

[DirgeNovak]

's.
It indicates possession, not plural! English is my second language and I know this. Why don't you?!

Also definitely, sequel, their/they're/there, your/you're...

I'll spare you the French examples, 'cause there are a lot more of them.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

I understand if someone makes a mistake because they are hasty, or because they simply mistyped, but when someone continuously spells words that a 5th grader would know, I have a hard time listening to their arguments and opinions.

If you have difficulties actually listening to the message of a written text just because you're obsessively bothered by spelling-mistakes, then that actually says more about your very intelligence than the education of the writer.

You do know that the POINT of language (written as well as verbal) is making oneself understood to others. So if you can clearly understand what someone else is saying, regardless of spelling errors, then what is there to be bothered about?

I'll tell you what: the fact that some people are incredibly neurotic, most likely suffering from some kind of social disability that they lose the ability to focus on the subject matter and start nitpicking over trivial details like spelling errors. It's a sign of immaturity and a pretty textbook case of it:

"The word is supposed to be written like THIS, because THAT is what the teacher in school taught us, and you don't write like the teacher told us we should so im going to disregard the message I can clearly read and go ballistic instead!" *rage* <-- honestly, does that seem like a mature and adult reaction to you?

So to all you grammar nazi's or you who are just borderline grammar nazi's, take this to heart:

Yes, some people do not spell correctly, but if you can understand just fine what the person is trying to say, then it's actually something much more wrong with YOU when you react the way you do and even start to lose focus of what the person is trying to say in favor of being nitpicky. And in fact, that is a much more severe problem that you really should try to adress than being less than perfect at spelling or grammar.

So each time you feel the rage building up, try to think of what purpose language has. It's not a competition in who can remember how to spell most words correctly, it's a TOOL to make yourself understood.