Your Grammar/Spelling Grievances

[Professor Lupin Madblood]

All the other threads I could find relating to grammar were pretty old, so I apologize if this one happily exists somewhere with a spouse, a white picket fence and two very successful children.

As the title says, what are your grammatical pet peeves? Why do you find them so annoying? Any horror stories?

Personally, just about everything to do with bad grammar really irritates me to no end. Abuse of apostrophes and homonym confusion are up there, but my worst are probably simple spelling errors (written mistakes) or improper sentence construction (spoken/written).

"Me and Mark were going to the store . . ."

No, Mark and I were going to the store. They're pronouns, you idiot. Use them properly. Would you say "Me was going . . ."? No, you wouldn't.

"My mistake on defence caused us to loose the game."

This one sort of overlaps with the aforementioned homonym confusion, but it's just so annoying. Loosing something means you're letting it loose. It's a completely different thing from LOSING a game, which means you didn't win. Did you not pass the second grade?

Also, I really hate it when people say "different than" in sentences. Because, you see, something cannot simple be different than something else. It can be MORE different than something else, but cannot simply be different than. Forgetting the "more" is like saying "I'm tall than you". IT DOESN'T WORK.


I'm going to stop before I rant on and fill several pages with walls of text and leave it to you good people to do that for me.

 

[strum4h]

"irregardless"
/thread

 

[Marter]

People using a hyphen and dash interchangeably.

I don't really know why this bugs me, but lots of people do it.

 

[ckam]

I actually found a few grammar/spelling mistakes on your post.

 

[TheAceTheOne]

I actually found a few grammar/spelling mistakes on your post.

Delicious irony.

For me, it's when people just obliterate any good grammar. Ellipses are okay, though... Actually, I use them a lot.

 

[Trildor]

I actually found a few grammar/spelling mistakes on your post.

Delicious irony.

For me, it's when people just obliterate any good grammar. Ellipses are okay, though... Actually, I use them a lot.

Except ellipses are meant to ommit words, not represent stops in conversation.

 

[BelmontClan]

Its, it's, they're, their, there, your, you're -- take the time to figure out which one you need to use.

The other thing that drives me up the wall is people who add an apostrophe and "s" to the end of words to make them plural. NO.

 

[TheAceTheOne]

I actually found a few grammar/spelling mistakes on your post.

Delicious irony.

For me, it's when people just obliterate any good grammar. Ellipses are okay, though... Actually, I use them a lot.

Except ellipses are meant to ommit words, not represent stops in conversation.

Touche. (I know I'm missing an accent on the e, and I'm too lazy to correct it. And yes, it is ironic in some way, I'm sure.)

 

[adderseal]

Its and it's. One is a possessive, the other is a contraction. It is not fucking hard to understand, and some of my university professors make that mistake. Absolutely disgraceful, every time I see someone balls that one up I want to punch a kitten.

The other thing that drives me up the wall is people who add an apostrophe and "s" to the end of words to make them plural. NO.

That's the worst, right there. Nothing else comes close.

 

[CrashBang]

There, their and they're
Your and you're
My biggest grammar gripe, the one which drives me insane, is 'could of'. Could of?! What in the hell does that mean?!

 

[ActionDan]

I could care less. That ISN'T right. If you could care less, it means that you do care about it, but could care less. Couldn't* care less.

 

[Gizmo007666]

For me it's people spelling genius with an o, particularly amusing when the person is trying to make light of another's intelligence and spelling does, dose. Unless you're administering medicine know the difference, it's not difficult.

 

[Professor Lupin Madblood]

"irregardless"
/thread

I've never really related to this one, likely because it isn't used/abused where I live.

I actually found a few grammar/spelling mistakes on your post.

Blasphemy! Lies! Of what grammar/spelling mistakes do you speak? The only spelling one I could see would be "defence", which is the British spelling (which is acceptable here in Canada). I could see a few sentence fragments (maybe, I'm not that great at identifying fragments), but that seems to be it.

 

[Professor Lupin Madblood]

There, their and they're
Your and you're
My biggest grammar gripe, the one which drives me insane, is 'could of'. Could of?! What in the hell does that mean?!

True story from my English class (grade 11 in the Canadian system).

Teacher: So here, I have a list of commonly confused words. As you can see, the non-contraction form of "should've" is "should have". People will often put "should of", which is never correct.
Student: But [teacher], wouldn't it depend on the context and phrasing of the sentence?
Teacher: Name one example where "should of" is correct.

He couldn't. It was priceless.

 

[nifedj]

The use of "less" when the correct choice is "fewer".

"There's ". Most people wouldn't say "There is ", but they make that mistake with "there's"

As someone has already noted, "I could care less" is really annoying. The phrase is "I couldn't care less". The former completely fails to convey what people are usually trying to get across when they use that phrase.

Referring to collectives as plurals, eg. "the government were".

 

[Hader]

I actually found a few grammar/spelling mistakes on your post.

Delicious irony.

For me, it's when people just obliterate any good grammar. Ellipses are okay, though... Actually, I use them a lot.

Except ellipses are meant to ommit words, not represent stops in conversation.

Incorrect usage, as well as overuse, of ellipses.

Seriously...some people...I have seen...type like this...all...the...time...as if...there is some point...to get...across...

 

[Pojo-san]

My biggest pet peeve is when people spell "y'all" as "ya'll" That is not correct spelling and it is not acceptable. "Y'all" is a conjunction of "you" and "all", so by spelling it as "ya'll" you are saying something along the lines of "ya" and "will" since the "'ll" in English is known widely as the abbreviation for "will."

I also hate when people use the word "irony" incorrectly. "Irony" means that the result of a situation is the opposite of the one that was intended. Example of incorrect irony: "A cop was pulled over today for drinking and driving." That's is not irony. This is irony: "A Modest Proposal." For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, go read "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift and you will know why the title is ironic.

I also don't like it when people use semicolons incorrectly. It seems that people don't know the one simple rule of semicolons; Schools should emphasize it a lot more. Semicolons are used to link two independent clauses together if and ONLY IF they talking about the same thing. See example above in the second sentence.

Last two things I don't like. I don't like it when people use "alot" and "cannot." Both are grammatically incorrect. What angers me the most is that when I'm writing and I type "can not", the computer tells me that it is wrong. NO, IT'S NOT!

 

[Kellerb]

'Hold down the fort'

Hold the fort i would understand. we are in the fort, holding of the metaphorical enemies outside. one of us needs to go out to get some cat food or a water filter or whatever. one of us needs to stay so we still have the fort. An intellegent tactical decision.

'Hold down the fort'? really? Hold down the fort because, as you know, it is an inflatable hover fort? or maybe we should hold down the fort so that we may tickle the fort?

also, the linguistic american pronaunciation of herbs - 'erbs'. grinds me gears.

 

[Professor Lupin Madblood]

Last two things I don't like. I don't like it when people use "alot" and "cannot." Both are grammatically incorrect. What angers me the most is that when I'm writing and I type "can not", the computer tells me that it is wrong. NO, IT'S NOT!

"Alot" should indeed be hewn in twain, but "cannot" is a perfectly valid word. It's even in the dictionary.

"cannot (contraction)
The usual way of writing 'can not'."

Seriously...some people...I have seen...type like this...all...the...time...as if...there is some point...to get...across...

Maybe they just have many POINTS.

BA-DUM PSSSHHH

Referring to collectives as plurals, eg. "the government were".

"Your data were very helpful."

No, IT was very helpful! Don't you go pulling your same-word plural trick on me! I know it's a legitimate sentence but I hate it nonetheless!


OT: I haven't seen either one mentioned, so I'll say two things:
1) Who's/whose - "Who's" is a contraction of "who is". "Whose" is interrogative and possessive (Whose backpack is this?). The difference is not difficult, people!

2) Comma abuse - What is it with people today that they don't understand what a comma does? It does more than just give a short pause whilst reading: it introduces things, it separates items in lists, it is used (often) to set appositives apart from the rest of the sentence and can do many more things.
What it doesn't do is this: "Lastly, the campaign, this all-new adventure does not deviate too much from the other installments, but, it does let you play as a new character."

That sentence alone made me embarrassed for my school newspaper, though I can't say I was surprised I found it in a 'review' of Modern Warfare 2.


Holy wall of text, Batman!