I have training in choral singing, so not surprisingly, most of my grammatical pet peaves stem from my experience there...

Lute: It is pronounced "L'yute", not LOOT!!!

Our: Like hour, it has two syllibals!! Not ARE!!

Anything two words where the first ends in "t" and the second word is "you". This is usually butchered, as in "I wantchu" or "I see thatchu". ARRRGH!

*edit: oops, thought of another,

From the two books of the same titles:

There is no "cow" in Moscow (long O sound at the end) and There is no zoo in Zoology (the zoo part is more like "oh" when in the longer word)

My english major of a brother has recently gotten me to notice gramatical mistakes. I think the ones I hate the most are "the reason is because" and "very unique".

Definately. Then there's the ole' they're/there/their confusion as well, which I completely despise.

I friggin' hate marketspeak. Like people saying i have "T" instead of I am tired. Why make up ridiculously stupid phrases instead of using perfectly good and real english?

Also the 110% thing bugs me because by default 110% will revert to 100% by default.

Two words: "should of"

Maybe that's a spelling issue. I don't know...

EDIT: Someone had that one. How about this: "very original"

"prolly"

when people use " ` " instead of " ' ". my friend does this, one example is the word "It's", he will put "It`s" and i can't stand it

Too lazy to read ALL of the posts... but

Their vs They're vs There
and you're vs your drive me nuts if people screw it up while trying to correct someone else.

I must restrain myself from trying to beat down people who respond with "your all stupid" Ack - it hurts to even type it.

(Oh yes, ditto on the whole I'm not perfect thing either ;) - but c'mon people!) heh heh

I would hope it sounds wrong to you ;)

I cringe the most when I hear "yous" as in "yous guys" and yes, I do hear it..

My mother was a teacher, two of my aunts were teachers, and both grandmothers were teachers..

i hate the people who dont know the difference between "too" and "to"
also the people who dont know the difference between "their", "there", and "they're"

argh

I dislike it when people use me when it should be I, or vice versa, and when they use good, when it should be well.

My pet grammar peave would be bloody Wendy's. I'm not sure if you know it but in australia its a sort of icecream, milkshake, smoothy take away shop. I understand the shop is named Wendy's and the 's is appropriate because it says that the shop belongs to wendy. What gets me however is when advertising Wendy's products such as the smoothies, ice chillers etc. all the advertising material uses an 's i.e. smoothy's or chilla's - i would like to ask just what exactly belongs to wendy's smoothies and chillers - I was not aware food and drink could own anything??

i understand this may be some marketing genius at work but it shits me.

my peeve would have to be subject-verb agreement. I HATE it when people say things like "those trucks is driving really fast" and "wow, that bird are flying high". these are both things i heard fairly recently. also "ain't" and "ya'll". i guess not being from the south and living in the south caused this, but damn!! "i ain't got no money"? ain't got no friggin common sense, either

I hAtE iT wHeN pEoPlE tYpE LiKe ThIs.

Provably instead of probably - similar to the supposably vs. supposedly that was listed earlier.
Using "on" before a date instead of just beginning with the month.
"Ya know" before every sentence and "like" interspersed within.
The improper use of ellipsis...
Towards instead of toward.
Young child - all children are young!!! Ooh do I hate that one...
Anytime anyone says "any hoo" or "I'll talk at you" instead of "let's speak/I'll call later". Another one that makes my skin crawl.:mad:

i hate it when people say 'supposed to', 'post to.'

the hicks in my town pronounce 'both', 'bolth.'

'you's guys.'

Lastly. and this one drives like a nail into my skull.

NUCLEAR

NU-CLEAR. How anyone can manage to be so stupid as to fuck this up is beyond me.

(I know i should be a bit more understanding, but my hatred of 'nuculear' goes beyond any logical explanation.)

This has been mentioned but, the misuse of homonyms absolutely infuriates me!!! The most common error seems to be with: There, Their, They're

I also hate problems with agreement:
These are worth a rant:

"I'm not afraid of nothing".
Should be: "I am not afraid of anything".

"She literally died when I told her".
Really? So, when is the funeral?

This is called a double negative and a lot of people have trouble with it, even when it's done intentionally. For instance, a lot of people will be confused by a sentence like "I haven't had no luck with the post office."
It's not even necessarily their fault. A common English protocol is to ignore the negative, like in the question "Don't you like it?" If they do like it, their answer is typically "yes," even though the question asked the opposite. So, if the question was "Do you like it?" and the answer is "Yes," then the answer to "Don't you like it?" should really be "No." This problem seems to be specific to English, too. For instance, the Japanese, have no problems with their inversions or their double negatives.

Another one (although I've already said this but it's a long thread and, already, people have been skipping the middle parts to read the end) that's similar to this is the use of "by definition." "By definition, women should stay at home." Really? The definition of a woman is someone who stays at home?
Although one might be generous and just call these misuses "exaggerations" but I honestly think they're born out of ignorance. If you don't realize you're "exaggerating," can you really be exaggerating? It doesn't mean this literally by definition but "close" to it? I don't mean literally literally but close to it?

I struggle with the preposition at the end of a sentence.
"where are you going at?" NO! NO!
Simply ...Where are you going?

And when people don't know when to use I or me.

when you ask how someone did on a test etc and they replie 'I did GOOD'

I get seriously annoyed at people who type a letter as if they are speaking the words onto the paper. Does that make sense?

You talk a totally different language to the one you write with, don't get the two confused!

I just think it's not too much to ask to try and give good grammar.

(fatboss quickly proof reads his post) :)

It really irks me when people replace the word "have" with "of".

Such as: "they shouldn't of been there".

And I see this a LOT... I mean, geez...

One of my biggest is when you see or hear a sentence that ends with the word "at".

"Where you at?"
"Where are you at?"
"Were are you going to be at?"

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHH!!!!!

A second is incorrect use of adverbs. L and Y are letters too folks. Learn them. Love them. Use them :) Often-LY. :lol:

And you're from Ohio? Ouch...

I absolutely hate "internet speak." Some things I use myself, like "lol". But replacing words with numbers? Drives me crazy.

Edit: Forgot one...people that don't use punctuation. Arg!

Don't want to read through all the post so not sure if this one is already in here.

I hate it when people use to, too and two wrong. I hate it when I see someone write: I have too admit that this is to much for me. Too is about the easiest word to use correctly.

When someone uses TO when it's supposed to be TOO, or HEAR when it's HERE. etc...

Also, using double negatives, it makes you sound like a hick.

Saying ME and Sara went to the store, it's Sara and I...

This thread could go on forever. I, too am guilty of not reading the whole thing (after the first time I posted, of course). I was just reminded of another MAJOR peeve of mine.

When you quote somebody, you have a QUOTATION. "Quote" is not a noun. It is, in fact, a verb.

Used to assistant teach middle school English. Chatspeak has pervaded their lives so much that kids can't put a 3 sentence paragraph together anymore. They write 'cuz' for because, inject 'like' into every other sentence and can't spell to save themselves. But the worst offense to me is beginning the written essay with a question in the manner of, Did you ever.....?Teachers are accepting this and it is like nails on a chalkboard to me!!! One last peeve-daughter actually had alright as a spelling word!!!! ARRGGGHHH!!! (did any of you know that you never, ever say 'thank-you' at the end of a business letter? Never thank someone for something they did not do yet-say, I appreciate your prompt consideration...)

What are you supposed to say at the end of a business letter? "Thank you in advance for your prompt consideration"? I always thought a "Thanks for your time" was standard protocol. Please enlighten me.

QuickQuote


I don't know exactly who the 'a' or 'an' thing is supposed to work, but from what i remember 'an' goes before any word starting with a vowel. For some reason it drives me nuts to see an 'an' before a word like monkey or something. Just doesn't sound right to me. Hell I may be wrong but it still sounds stupid

Any word starting with a vowel???
Do you say 'a union' or 'an union?" In Canada, our police are called RCMP members. Is he 'a RCMP member' or is he 'an RCMP member'?

I just pulled my copy of "Woe is I" off the shelf (excellent reference text by Patricia T. O'Conner). Here's the a/an story:

Use a in front of words that start with these sounds: a "sounded" h (the ha-ha variety, as in history, horror, hotel);a "long" u (the yew variety, as in university, utopia, eulogy, European).

Use an in front of words that start with these sounds: a "silent" h (hour, honor, herbal); a "short" u (uncle, umbrella, umber).

I have no grammatical pet peeves, my grammar is horrible, and I thank people for putting up with it.

Unless, of course, you meant to use a double negative, right?

Where I come from, people use double negatives with the understanding that the sentence turns out positive in the end. So, "I don't have no interest" can mean you have some vague interest, in colloquial speech...

Are you sure? My father and uncles are still my grandparent's children, even though they are not young.

Noone mentioned this one yet. :D

Here's two of mine:

past / passed:

It bothers me when people write "I past by it on the way to work"


robbed / burglarized:

Robbery is the taking of something from a PERSON by using force or the threat of force. I read in the newspaper all the time "House robbed while family on vacation". A house cannnot be robbed. A house is burglarized.

One thing that REALLY irks me is when people say "baby" instead of "the baby" like so:

"Baby doesn't like his bottle too hot!"

or

"Make sure baby gets enough sleep!"

It's *THE* baby, goddamn it.

A branch of this would be "The Passion of The Christ". It should be "The Passion of Christ". If I borrow a friend's ladder and this friend is named Smith, I don't say, "The Ladder of The Smith."

Dictionary.com:
I'm pretty sure that 'Christ' is a title, not a name. It's like saying "the mayor".

Ah, I always though Christ was his last name. Jesus Christ, Joe Smith, etc ;)

italian versus I-talian. first one is right cuz the I is not pronouced I or then it would be I-taly as well.

I'm not sure if this was said already, but I hate when people use apostrophes to make plurals.

It irritates me when people leave the "to be" out of a sentance.

My car need cleaned.
The baby needs changed.
etc...

HAHA. I love that! That show had its moments.

Note: its, not it's

/had to enter at least one peeve.

Sorry, but this poster just bothered me, because as a CS student I hear this ALL the time and use it all the time, and it's perfectly acceptible!


http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=input
Sure, using bad grammar bothers me, but the absolute worst grammar pet peeve of mine is when someone corrects a perfectly acceptible sentence. If you are going to correct me, please make sure I was actually wrong. I'm not an idiot, and I know how to speak my own language, thank you.

Nice one. My parents do that all the time. "I could care less about blah!" Um, if you could care less, then you're not proving your point very well. If you could NOT care less (couldn't) then it would make more sense.

-Lasereth

It's what context you're using the double negative in. That sentence can be taken two ways: I don't have any "interest," and I don't have "no interest." Double negatives are used more than I'd like to admit in my hometown. A woman at work actually said, "Nope, those dishes don't need no washing no way."

-Lasereth

yeah. but in all fairness, woman had other influences on her bad language!

1. not choosing the proper...

there, their, they're

or

your, you're

2. when someone is asked how they are doing and they respond with "doing good" when they mean "doing well."

I hate it when instead of saying height, people say heigth. (pronounced hi-th)

It pisses me off to no end.

ending sentences with prepositions and incorrect homonym usage... these tweak my nerves

i hate when people put themselfs first

"me and john went to in-n-out"

People that misuse "bring" and "take." Look them up and you'll see there is a difference.Explantaion of the two

Ever talk to someone from the UK -- They have to go to hospital - (WHICH ONE?) or that girl goes to uni -- uni is annoying enough - but be specific -- which one -- there's only one university in the UK? Only one hospital?
(I really must cut back on the caffeine)

When people screw up the use of Can and May

Speech quirks drive me battier than any grammar usages ever could -- (Umm, Like, Ya Know - -will send me over the edge)

I'm not sure if it's grammatical or just a spelling error, but I HATE it when people say 'funnest' or 'hugest'...they aren't real words. Also, I hate when people write 'would of' instead of 'would have!'

how about all of them? they all peeve me...maybe due to a little OCD on my end?

I think they're called malapropisms petite

Ah okay.

I also hate run-on sentences they get so annoying because you never know when to pause for a breath they just keep going on and on and on and for me I just get angrier and angrier!

See how annoying that was?

I swear to god ever since I posted that "Baby" pet peeve in this thread, I've been hearing it at least ONCE daily. It's driving me CRAZY.

Just now, I heard someone say, "When baby is born..." :mad:

Hate to stomp on your peeve, Stompy, but I would think that in those cases you've brought up, they're not only referring to the baby as an object, but actually giving him/her/it a pseudonym, or a nickname.

Yeah, Baby is a nickname because they probably haven't come up with a name yet. They don't want to call the baby an 'it,' but still want to refer to it lovingly as 'Baby.'

Over there, they have their golf course, where they're playing golf.

Two owls are flying to their nest in the tree. I'm watching, too.

The pronunciation of accross as accrossT.

I normally chalk up to stylistic differences a lot of the things I've seen in this thread, but the homonym stuff bothers me, and misuse of the well/good types of related words. I also don't care for redundancy in written works, unless it's a narrowly defined technical word or phrase. I think it was mentioned previously, but I'll single it out here: lots of exclamation points at the end of sentences in an email. No one can be that damn excited over anything.

The funny thing is that as I'm typing this, I realize I'm feeling self-conscious about what I'm typing. I've probably committed some sort of grammatical sin in this post, but I suppose that's life.

And I'll finally add my weight to the cry against the bastardization of English involving cuz/ltr/lmao. It reminds me of being in high school and writing r/h/t/s in someone's yearbook.

And this may not be in fashion on a forum board, but the following bothers me as well :

That is all.

The thing that bothers me most about grammer is that I don't believe in most of it. You see, I'm a programmer and well versed in many different computer languages and as it turns out, there's a lot of similarities between programming and natural languages. In computer languages there are various ways of writing the exact same statement in the same language. For example, in C, the statement: i = i + 1; is semantically identical to: i+=1;. They just use different syntax. Often different organizations define coding standards or conventions that specify the use of one form or the other. This mearly makes the code easier to read by other humans. In the natural languages there are ways to do the same thing. So long as a sentence conveys the intended meaning, it should be correct. Essentially, every English class I've ever had has been teaching me a specific standard, and each test I've had has been testing my coherance to that standard. And finally, this is where my peeve comes in... I hate conforming to standards.

I'm sure that your programs parse well when you don't conform to standards. Words are like that too. Use them properly and you can get more meaning from them.

I must ask. What is "r/h/t/s"?

Maybe it's a local thing for rednecks (originally hail from S.C.) It stand for "raise hell this summer" and I have it plastered over god only knows how many (4) highschool annuals and several tee shirts that everyone signed in middle school. We were so cool and daring....how I long for those halcyon days.

Here are my pet peeves:

1) I'm with Batman on improper use of 'myself.'

2) Improperly using 'I' instead of 'me.' "It is just you and me." NOT "It is just you and I."

3) Improperly using 'which' and 'that'. Remember: if you can tell the specific thing being discussed without the which or that clause, use which; if you can't, use that.


4) Improperly using 'e.g.' and 'i.e.' Remember: 'e.g.' stands for 'for example,' so only use it when you are listing some examples; 'i.e.' stands for 'that is.'

BTW, I'm a business lawyer and draft contracts all day long, so the correct use of grammar can have an impact on my clients. I regularly pull out a little book called "The Goof-Proofer," which I bought in college, and recommend it to everyone. The book is a really easy read, and lists the 41 most common errors in writing and speaking.

"I HATE the confusion of good/well.
I'm not even sure what the exact rule is.
But I hate it when someone says something like "I heard that he did real good".

Ok... "Good" is an adjective. It is used to modify nouns, such as "I am good" in which case "Good" is modifying the noun "I".

"Well" is an adverb, used to modify a verb. An example of this would be "I am doing well" in which case "well" is modifying the verb "to do."

I could be wrong, but I thought this was "I am well" with well modifying the verb "to be". Maybe if you're treating "good" here like Plato's "The Good"?

Strangely, you're probably both right.

When someone asks "how are you?" You'd probably answer "I am well," rather than "I am good."

When someone asks "how are you at volleyball?" You'd probably answer "I am good," rather than "I am well."

See the distinction?

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but when you are referring to a decade such as the 60s, you do not use an apostrophe (i.e. 60's) -- unless it is possessive.

The apostophe is the most mis-used thing in the english language.. Look for a book called Eats, Shoots and Leaves which is a good book about horrible grammer mistakes

Them are cool.

I hate that more than anything in the world.

Instead of using they, it is replaced with them.

Nothing makes me feel more hickish and redneck than hearing someone say that. I was once dating a really nice guy, but after hearing him say that, it was over.

I hate when people say, "try and stop me"

When it should be "try to stop me"

I have a couple. I'm an english snob.

"Quote" used as a noun: the right word is "quotation," as in, "Larry quoted a quotation."

"Quality" used to mean "good": it doesn't. It must have a qualifier, in order to specify good or bad quality; by itself it means nothing.

In general, the verbing of nouns and vice-versa.

Commas after subject noun phrases, otherwise known as "techie comma" because it entered english usage from German engineers. Example: The dog with the red collar, chased the ball.

I've always hated how you're supposed to place periods and commas inside quotation marks.

It should be:

He said "hi".

NOT

He said "hi."

i hate it when people say...i know, right? bastards

I hate it when people spell losing "loosing".

My pet peeve is the use of 's for plural nouns.

Likewise omitting the apostrophe when it's supposed to be possessive.

One I've noticed quite a bit in the past couple of years that I'd never seen before is people substituting "then" for "than."

Another one. It drives me up the wall when people use "insure" instead of "ensure".

Using "entitled" for "titled," e.g., "I read a book entitled Fun with Dick and Jane."

That one may actually be considered correct usage, but I hate it anyway.

If you really want to drive yourself nuts, I suggest reading "Eats, Leaves and Shoots" - you will learn additional grammar faux pas with which to be eternally annoyed.

"should OF could OF would OF"
"I would OF got on the bus if I wasn't late"

Oh no!!! I do this all the time. *Feels ashamed*

:(

Don't be. They're both corruptions of "damn it." It's rather funny to hear someone say they're annoyed because people substitute one non-word for another non-word. :lol:

Adverbs. It's not that people use them incorrectly, it's just that they don't seem to use them at all.

"Man, he's running fast!"

Man, he's running quickly

"Why is this car in front of me going so slow!?"

Why is this car in front of me going so slowly?!"




It also bugs me when people use prepositions when they're not applicable.

"Where are you at?"

The 'at' is not necessary. It's redundant.




The improper conjugation of verbs annoys me to no end as well. I'm sure you've all heard plenty of people saying "we be" and "I is".



The thing I've had the most trouble explaining to people is the english subjunctive. For example, a person would be trying to put himself in a situation and totally fail grammatically at doing so:

"If I was an astronaut, I'd be on the moon by now."

No! No! No!

If I were an astronaut, I'd be on the moon by now.




That's it for my ranting for now. :rolleyes:

I guess for me it would be when people end a sentence with a preposition that doesn't even need one. (Oops. I didn't read above) For example, they will say, "Where are we going to?" when "Where are we going?" would be both shorter and more correct.

The other thing that annoys the shit out of me is when people put "apostrophe's" on "plural's" instead of "possessive's." I had a boss who did this constantly in his memos, so one day I went through and added apostrophes to every word ending in "s" in his entire memo. Even words like "glass" got changed to "glas's." That did not put me in the best favor with the boss.

It gets me when the word "data" is treated as singular. It's (or is it its ;) ) plural, the singular form of the word is datum.

It also bug sme when people cvan't use backspace to fix qick typos...

Is it that hard to proof read what you wrote?

It bothers me when people incorrectly use the word myriad by adding an "a" and an "of"

For example: "There are a myriad of reasons for..."

The proper usage of the word would be: "There are myriad reasons for..."

Several of you say you aren't english majors, hell I was absent the day they taught english at my school...

Like most not guilty of the transgression, the mixing up of your, and you're are terrible. When I receive e mail form somebody that doesn't take the time to figure that out...they get a short ride to the trash file. The other really bad one in my book is ending a sentence with a preposition. My mom was a teacher, and if someone said "Where are my socks at", she would say, they are right under the at, just where they belong.

I believe in good grammar as well, however, my spelling could use a good brushing up.
I hate it when people say "yous guys". You hear this a lot in the northern part of the country. It sends a shiver down my spine. I do not know why?

Oh ya, this too. The word "that" being over used.

How does that look?
How does it look?

I'm no expert at the english language, but I have a few peeves.
Definetly definately definatly. There is definitely a problem here.Uranus ir not your anus, it's more like urine us (please don't).
Vega is pronounced Vay-ga.
Further is a statement of more abstract distance, farther is for more concrete. I have to further look into the situation. I ran farther than the others.
You say tomatoe. I'll say tomato.
Rite right.
I hate it when people use words(usually big) incorrectly to sound intelligent when they don't know their meaning.
When you peruse a page, you read through it carefully. You do not skim through it.
By the way, heighth is a real word meaning height. "The heighth of fashion."

Good buy everyone.

When people say "strenth" and leave out the damn G! It's strength DAMN IT!

I prefer to think they were Anglicised :)

My biggest pet peeve is when starting a new sentence CAPITALIZE the first letter. That just irritates me so much when people just use lower case.

Also, while not so much a grammatical pet peeve, when people feel that they have to use those big college words when there are other simpler words available for us simple people to understand (and when I say us, I mean me). :D

I hate when people use the word times wrong. Like they say you times 4 by 3 instead of saying you multiply 4 by 3.

Two big ones that I've seen a lot here are rediculous and wierd. They are spelled ridiculous and weird.