What are your grammatical pet peeves?
 

Now I'm not an English major and am by no means even all that good with my grammar (see my terrible use of commas), but there are certain things that just bother me when I see or hear them. I'm leaving out some of the more obvious ones, but feel free to post them if you like.

Anyways - There should be no 's' at the end of this word. I don't know why it bothers me so much, but for some reason it does. "Towards" doesn't bother me quite as much, perhaps because I don't hear it as often.

Myself - "If you have any questions, feel free to contact Bob, Karen, or myself." I'm convinced that people who say this are just trying to make themselves sound more important. Just say "Bob, Karen, or me."

Coincidence does not equal irony. I don't have much else to say on that one.

Grammer - Okay, this is a spelling pet peeve, but I had to say it anyway. This one is especially funny when people are trying to point out other people's poor "grammer."


Okay, now feel free to rip apart my grammar in this post if you like. I'm sure I've given you plenty to work with.

Re: What are your grammatical pet peeves?
 

:lol:

y'know, i've never actually seen that one..

hmm, i cannot think of mine atm, other than the obvious irkers like to/too, than/then, your/you're, etc...

perhaps just because i *try* to ignore them.

i kno there are more tho.

hmm, and my grammar is far from perfect, and oft my spelling is intentionally perverted...

the key here is intentional. and not that i intend to look stupid either. just a way of personalising i suppose.

Grammar knowledge is one thing i would like more of.
Perfectionist.

Right now though my focus is learning a 'foreign' language (German) and its associated grammar.

(dear god, is there supposed to be an apostrophe in that 'its'? It's obviously not a conjunction of it and is, it is perhaps similar to a possessive pronoun? eek. ok, i'm feeling more stupid now)

good thread.

I can't always spell correctly... but I HATE IT WHEN "DAMMIT" IS SPELLED "DAMNIT". I see it all the time while playing online multiplayer games.

The correct would be damnit wouldn't it? "
Damn", and "It"

DAMN IT is correct as two words ... as one word, it can be spelled DAMMIT with as much legitimacy as "gonna". Not a "real" word, but that is how people use it, so fine outside of formal writings. Like my friend's kid asked her "Mommy, how do you spell BIGOL'"
( like, a big, old truck ... ok works better when spoken)

BTW: "Its" as a possesive (I like German and its associated ... ) is not apostrophe'd.

Can you conjugate apostraphe as if it's a verb? That's interesting, I hadn't done that before. Although, I do think in general it is funny to use nouns as verbs.

*EDIT My sense of humor was not respectful. *

Supposedly pronounced with a "b" in it instead of a "d". Brings my opinion of someone down real quick.

You ask someone a question and they start of with "honestly." As in - Q:How much did you donate to charity last year. A: Honestly, about $20. Does that mean all the rest of the answers you gave me without the "honestly" before it isn't true?

Also, anyone who uses Mike Tyson-speak. Injecting large syllabled words into sentences to prove how intelligent you are.

/end of rant

erm...what if they mean 'supposably'??

sup·posa·bly adv.

Supposable \Sup*pos"a*ble\, a. Capable of being supposed, or imagined to exist; as, that is not a supposable case. -- Sup*pos\"a*ble*ness, n. -- Sup*pos\"a*bly, adv.

When you're talking with someone and they start their sentences off with, "I mean, ...".
Drives me bonkers! :crazy:

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

Shoving the word "like" inbetween other words where it doesn't belong. I mean like it's so like horrible to like think that people can't like form a sentence like without using like words that like don't like belong. If you like know what I mean, like.

And uhm, when people are uhm talking to you and uhm they constantly stop and uhm think about what they are going to say next and uhm always start with the word and. And uhm turn like twenty or so sentences into likeone long run-on sentence with lots of "likes" and "and uhms".

And don't forget the whole who/whom disaster. People, remember if it can be evenly exchanged with the subject of the sentence, use "who". Who is it? If it is the object of a preposition, it is "whom". To whom are you referring?

I don't have any pet peeves that affect me as drastically as they seem to affect you guys ( ;) ), but the ones that are slightly more than a minor annoyance are your/you're, and then/than.

I just hate when anal bastards just have to correct my grammer mistakes - It's normally my boss at work !

- When people think quotation marks are used to emphasize a point. I see this a lot on store signs, such as: Buy one, get one "free".

- When people end sentences with prepositions. Such as "Grammar knowledge is one thing i would like more of." from an above post. Sometimes it's allowable because the correct form would be awkward as hell ("Grammar knowledge is one thing of which I would like to know more.") and there may not really be a better way to put it otherwise.

Lose and loose.

Every time somebody types, "I'm always loosing things," I have to reply, "Why - are they all too tight?"

I also notice a lot of "to" instead of "too", and "should of" instead of "should have."

And - again - the infamous "your" and "you're."

Oh - and while we're at it - how about "yah," "yea.', and "yeah."?
If you're cheering for a team - it's "yea" (rhymes with 'hay')
If you're responding in the affirmative, it's "yeah." (rhymes with "nah" - its opposite)

/rant over - goosesteps back to grammar nazi barracks

I think yay is what you do when cheering for a team.

My pet peeve is confusing your and you're, but you'renamehere beat me to it.

I also hate to see there and their confused.

Yes, I messed his name up on purpose. :p

Ohh, that's a good one. That one bothers me a lot too.

how about irregardless instead of regardless. people are always using this and i have to grit my teeth every time.
I have several friends who unthaw stuff too! I always ask them if they are putting the whatever back in the freezer.

It really bothers me when people type and don't use capitalization and punctuation.

Yup, that has bothered for a very long time. Good to know I am not the only one who notices this error.

Ha ha, that reminds me. In the Math department at my college, a sign posted read "Did you loose you're bracelet? Come buy room 320 and identify if you want it." I wanted to rip the poster down.

My main pet peeves for grammar are the you're/your, too/to, their/there/they're, and when people use "shorthand" Internet speak. I hate LOL, LMAO, IDK (a new one, means I don't know), and other various Internet crap. I also hate it when people say tho/kno and atm. In other words, I hate Internet abbreviations. I understand when people use them because it saves typing time, but when people that type fast use them, it drives me insane.

Two new atrocities are meh and feh. I fucking HATE those two words. I can't stand them at all. My friend at college said them on AIM until I told him to stop in real life. Something about those two "feelings" or "state of beings" annoy the shit out of me.

I hate ur. It's not even abbreviated; this is one of those words that are completely made up based on how the original word sounds. When people say "ur" to me on AIM, I ask what the hell a "ur" is. Is it that hard to type you're? Or even your, if they fuck up worse than usual?

And for the finale: plz thx. Holy shit. If I see anyone saying this that I talk to on AIM, I go apeshit on them. I ask them how it's faster to type the z and x than please and thanks. PLZ doesn't even resemble please. PLZ would be pronounced something like "pillz." And the God-forsaken THX. THX is a theatrical sound encoding medium, NOT an abbreviation for thanks. Again, THX would be pronounced as "Thux."

Maybe I went a little overboard, but perhaps this thread really needed to be made for people to vent. There's my ventings. :) Oh, and I don't mean any of this personally, I'm just stating what irks me. Have a nice day!

-Lasereth

Quanitfication of absolutes. For example: I have a very unique computer. That's the most unique thing I have ever seen. He gives 110 percent effort.

Those just drive me nuts. I know that language is always evolving, but I just hate it when I see it used in such ways.

I'm not sure if this is wrong, but I hate it when people say something is an "over-exaggeration". Well, is there another kind?

Tail now appropriately tucked between my legs.

There is a friend of mine who has the weirdest form of typing online. He makes sure to start every single messege on AIM with a capital letter, and end with a period, but for some reason still manages to spell just about every single word wrong. His argument is always that he doesn't take the time to proofread his sentences, but in that case, why does he always take the time to make sure there is a capital/period at the beginning/end? WTF? Who knows, but some of his more common errors are switching "us" with "use", "want" with "wont", "ho's" with "hoes", and the name of a local club "Aquarius" with "Aquariouse". So a sentence that would be completely innocent and go a little something like "Hey dude, do you wont to come with use and pick up some hoes to go to Aquariouse?" No thanks man, as much as I want to take a bunch of garden tools to a club, I think I'll pass... Another thing that kills me is when people use "u" and "2" instead of "you" and "to". Is it really that hard to spend the extra two seconds and just type the other two letters?

Like I said in my first post, I am by no means an English major. What exactly is wrong with this?

Lasereth: I agree with you on most of those. "Feh" and "meh" don't bother me, and I can put up with "lol." Most of those I just find annoying though. I can't understand why people would want to look stupid. Or maybe they think that if they actually try to speak proper english, they'll screw up too much, so they just go straight to full-blown bad.

I at least want to look like I'm trying, even if I don't always have perfect grammar.

People who make non-words part of their conversation.

AT work, people commonly say "It was inputted".

INPUTTED? That is the one thing that drives me nuts! It makes me think less of whoever is talking.

making a lot into one word ... "I hate it alot."

This is not grammar, but definitely an annoyance of mine. I can't STAND it when I see someone use 'ect...' Augh! It is 'et cetera.' If you will be abbreviating the latin, please 'to be using' 'etc.' Thanks :P.

Jdoe

The only one I can think of is ending a sentence in a preposition, e.g. "Where's the white women at?"

Other than that, simple subject/verb agreement (see the above example) and dangling participles are bad too. Lord knows I hate to get caught with my participle left dangling!

Not to fear Batman (love the name). I am not an English major either. Actually, fighting this bout of bronchitis I'm not even sure if I can spell correctly. The problem with quantiying a word like unique is that it is already and absolute. Something is either unique or it is not. Same principle about being pregnant. You are pregnant or you are not. As far the percents, they are a bit trickier. Things can rise more than 100% (this quarter has seen sales rise 300% over last) and can run more than 100% over capacity. You will give my math professor father fits though if you ever say "he gives 110% every night". It is something of an acceptable expression now, but strictly speaking impossible. Hope that clarifies it a little bit.

This is a constant geographical grammatical dilemma: (huh?)

I was born down South, raised up North, moved back down South, then moved out West, then back down South.

It sure is hard to keep switching from "You guys" to "ya'll".

If you say "ya'll" anywhere but down South, they make fun of you.
If you say "you guys" down South, they make fun of you.

There should be a third generic term for the entire country.

Do you guys have any suggestions? Because ya'll are pissing me off if you don't.

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".

Also, I hate, when people, use, too many, commas. I'm guilty, of that, quite often myself.
:)

I just hate getting my muckin furds wuddled.

It's been a while for me but I would have to say the adverb modifying the verb. An easy example, "You do a good job, but you do it well."

Jdoe

"Where's the women at, asshole?" :lol:

The thing....that I really hate....is people....who can't seem to find the....comma button....on their...keyboard.

One of the funniest episodes of television was the old show, 'Designing Women'. Delta Burke, the loud obnoxious one, went to some fancy party and approached a group of women with the question, "Where are all of you from?"

A snooty woman looks at her and says, "We're from a place where we don't end our sentences with prepositions."

To which Delta Burke responds, " I'm sorry. Where are all of you from, bitch?"

Hehehehe.

I can't stand the way some folks say something like "That needs washed." What the heck? It's too much effort to put in to be?

My friend constantly types out we'll instead of well, pisses me off something fierce.

1) Sherbert instead of sherbet.
2) Ax instead of ask.
3) People who insist on including "an' stuff" after every thought uttered.
4) People who feel it is thier right to add explitives to nearly every sentence...way too much Tony Soprano.

Most of my pet peeves have been posted by others, but I'd like to add a few more:
Adding an apostrophe where s indicates a plural, not possessive. (ABC's) While it's now accepted as correct by some institutions, it still bothers me.
Incorrect punctuation around "quotes." ("Like this".)
Confusing "a" and "an." With some words (and many acronyms), depending on how you pronounce it, both are acceptable. However, people still really botch this one. (a article)
When people say "mispelling," or even worse "mispeling."
*I am adding:* Confusion between "then" and "than."
And "it's" v "its."

This thread reminds me of last night. I went with my friend to a bail bonds place because a guyfriend of hers was arrested (AGAIN). While I didn't agree with what she was doing, I still went for support and such. On the wall were two green folders labeled: "Warrent's" followed by another word.
It pissed me off to the point of being comical. Especially since a paper hanging out of the folder was titled in a nice, big, bold font, "WARRANT." Not to mention the additional apostrophe.

I have to admit I am a big-time offender when it comes to using "like." I also use way too many parentheses.

one of my biggest ones has already been mentioned - ending a sentence with a preposition, or using them incorrectly.

A good example of something that really irks me is the song from SClub7 (?) I believe that has the line:
"No matter where life takes me to, I will always be with you"

funner = more fun

Eoywn_Vala hates that so much cuz shes an english major and im earth science. hehe i do it just to bug her

EKcetera

EKspecially

median not medium

liberal not asshole

Hanged vs. hung. That drives me nuts, and no one uses them properly.

I work with a guy who misuses and overuses the word "literally." He literally uses it in literally dozens of inappropriate situations, and that literally drives me crazy.

Poor grammar is something up with which I will not put. The most annoying is anyone who queries, "you know?," every other statement.

Pet Peeve of the Day (Rant)
 

I am sick and freaking tired of seeing people type without using any sort of punctuation/ capitals!! In emails, or various threads here, in memos even! For the love of god, people! It's not rocket science, it's not even bottle rocket science.
Here watch me [punctuation]: [holding shift key] LOOK KIDDIES! I CAN USE BASIC ENGLISH GRAMMER RULES!
See, it's tres easy.
Frankly, I think it makes peole who type like that look illiterate. Is it that they're just too lazy? Are they in such a hurry that they can't spend .000001 more seconds to put in a period or a comma or a capital letter? I wonder if they talk in a dead mono-syllable voice, or did they just never learned how to write.
how about this everyone here tries to type like this for one day and see if anyone can understand them i dont think it will work but everyone is welcome to try just know that i will hunt you down and staple an english primer to your freaking forehead why is it so difficult spelling i can fogive im a horrible speller but at least i try you know i have to really really try to type like this i keep wanting to use silly things like apostrophes the things that look like a comma only theyre above the letter and periods which we use to designate the end of a sentence
LIke this.


I'll admit that I have been guilty of this on occasion. And I get annoyed with myself for doing it.

*coughs and sheepishly looks at his most recent thread*

My typographical skills are usually exemplary, but I do tend to be a bit excitable. Sorry. I did edit in an apology when I noticed what I had done.

On a related note, can you edit thread titles here?

This is somewhere people come to express opinion and the like with freedom, they deserve not to use corect punctuation. Deal with it.

I can't believe no one has mentioned "your" and "you're" yet. That one makes me want to destroy the earth.

Being a support technician for several ISP's "down south", I get to listen to grammatical errors all the time. But one of the things that really gets on my nerves in when people pronounce "on" like the word "own". It's "ah-n" you backwoods imbeciles!

Bob the Angry Flower's Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots: http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif

I used to get a bit annoyed when people ended a sentence with a preposition, but it's not really a strict rule. There's also that quote someone mentioned earlier: "Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with I will not put." I believe it was from Churchill, but that's what they say about every quote.

Also, I read something interesting about people's tendency to say things like "um" and "like" all the time. Apparently it's a more or less necessary part of language; a sort of placeholder in a sentence without which conversations don't move as fluidly.

Geez, you people are more prescriptively anal than me. I agree with the spelling comments for the most part. Numbers/letters as words and misused apostrophes bother me. However, this whole "ending with a preposition" thing isn't so bad. Churchill's Quote

Bust_Action, you say that as if to imply that people in the south are inferior or make more mistakes. You fail to understand that people from around the country make all sorts of gaffes. You assume that your dialect is the "correct" one and that everyone should conform to your standard. One of the most basic principles of linguistics is the fact that languages/dialects are equal.

As for 'who vs. whom', it's a case of language evolution. (http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/who.html)

Finally, if you want to read about some more common errors and non-errors, check out http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/index.html

And we have a right to be annoyed be it. Deal with it.

Reason is because.....enough said. Having an English major for a brother has really increased my pet peeves in this area. What I hate the most is when my profs make more mistakes than he does.

Well, I have many pet peeves over grammar but most of them have already been said. So, let me turn around and say some things that don't bother me...


Actually, this is the same phenomenon as flammable and inflammable. Both words (in both cases!) exist and mean the same thing. Go figure...

I think someone else also mentioned this one (it's a long thread and I can't find them) and it's a pity because this is simply a difference between American english and British english, where it's not necessarily wrong to place punctuation outside the quotes.
I find it ironic that anyone can dislike English english (more ironic than a rainy day...).
Canada gets to be an amalgamation of the two.

Oh, and spived2 also mention this "a" and "an" peeve. I'm not sure how well known this is but words following "an" needn't necessarily start with a vowel. For instance, I prefer "an honest person" to "a honest person"...

Can you tell I'm not American?

Actually, many people have complained about this. Do a page search for it...

How do you feel about people misusing the term "by definition"?
By definition, people who drop out of school can't get good jobs!


The only complaint that I have that I don't remember reading in this thread is lack of punctuation. More than once, I've had trouble figuring out what someone on TFP is trying to say 'cause their post was ambiguous due to a lack of punctuation, commas in particular.

Personally, I like making up words. It's a testament to how language works. Even if you've never heard my made-up word, you can still know it's meaning. Beautiful...

That still conforms to the vowels restriction, since the H in "honest" is generally silent. There's a lot of argument over the silent H among those without much else to do. Some people like to just drop the H whenever they see it, while others steadfastly pronounce it, so depending on where you are, different words may use either "a" or "an."

Not familiar with meh, but feh is good Yiddish slang, and has been around a long time:
My current peeve is "actually". People are using "actually" everywhere for no apparant reason. It doesn't really add anything to most sentances where it is used. I consider it the "like" of the 2000's.

"on Purpose"
 

I don't know if this one is technically correct or not...it just drives me mad when some says that they did something " on purpose" or "on accident" or "by accident"...seemd it should be done "accidently" or "purposefully" can you be "on" a purpose???
just my two cents!

Someone already mentioned very unique. Unnique can be modified, but not intensified. Somehing may be nearly unique or truly unique, but nothing that is truly unique is any more unique than any other thing that is truly unique. There's one and only one of each.

What gets me is redundancies: close proximity (or, better yet, near to close proximity), revert back, approach towards, cash money.

Even worse is the redundant acronym: ATM Machine, PIN Number, 8 AM in the morning, and the ever popular RSVP, please. If you don't know what the acronym means, just call it what it is, and autoteller, an id number, or 8 in the morning, and, for the love of Dog and all that is Hairy, don't use acronymns in foreign languages. RSVP = respondez sil vous plait = reply please.

Feh is fine, so is nu. Don't mess with yiddish. Funniest sounding lanuguage ever.

On the flip side, there are things about correct English grammar (actually, more spelling than grammar) that really smack my package.

More than one ox are oxen. More than one fox, foxen? No foxes.
More than one goose are geese. More than one moose, meese? Nope, still moose.
One deer and two deer are the same, but try and convince the guy who pulled you over that the same applies to beer.
Index - Indicies. Matrix - Matricies. Codex - Codecies. But Kleenex - Kleenicies? They look at me like I'm mad. Xerox - Xerocies? That's a trick - it's xeroxen,

Swim, Swam, Swum. Present, Past, Past Participle. Not sting, stang, stung.

Drive, Drove, Driven. Not Dive, Dove, Diven.

The list is myriad. I am going to boldly split that infinitive whenever I want. And any time I want, I'll leave that participle dangling

Just to let you know, the grammatical term for this is "pleonasm". Kind of the inverse of an "oxymoron" (which is NOT a pimple cream for idiots).

I hate when people say "I could care less", meaning you care a little, when they mean "I couldn't care less".

Don't you mean, "more prescriptively anal than I."? ;)

haha. Maybe I should've put "myself" and fired everyone up. Seriously though, I would rarely use 'I' in that case when speaking. Thus, it stands that I'd probably use 'me' in such an informal setting. =)

Oh, and I agree with KnifeM on almost everything. Particularly, I prefer to put punctuation marks following quotation marks except in rare instances.

I've got many, but mostly in my own language. What I find more annoying than actual erroneous grammar is pompous vocabulary. For instance:

acquire = get
utilize = use
initiate = begin
prior to = before
due to the fact that = because
consequently = so

It seems to be quite common in technical writing, especially with foreigners like me.

gal, It's interesting that you find find certain words to be pompous despite English not being your first language. Then again, perhaps that's exactly why you find them pompous. Anyone fluent in English might not even notice the difference between these terms. Either way, your English seems rather good. I've seen other Norwegians post on this board and you all seem to know English better than a lot of Americans here!

Now, are you saying that these people are pompous because they use one word when they could use the other or because you feel that these words can always be interchanged with the other?

There are times when one word is more approprite than the other. Even at times when they can be interchanged, English is a language of variety (just look at the sheer number of synonyms!) and it looks really bad to use the same word, over and over again. So, people might throw in more esoteric words when one has already been used, recently. Consequently, others might find this pompous but it is merely an attempt to keep the text lively...

Most of those "pompous" synonyms "invaded" the English language through the more flowery French and/or Latin. Most of the less pompous that you mention are Germanic in origin.

YES. This probably bothers me more than it does most other folks. When I say "well" to somebody who asks me how I am doing and they say "'well...' what?" I cringe.

Here are a few that haven't been mentioned:

1) saying, "Here's [number greater than 1]." "Here's" is a contraction of "Here" and "is" so the proper conjugation of "to be" in this case (involving a plural) is "are."

2) saying "itch" when you mean "scratch"--Wow, my arm really itches... "So itch it!"--AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

3) using "quote" as a noun--"This is a quote from Supple Cow." While I hope to be wise enough to be quoted one day, I do hope that the introduction to my quotation will be correct when it happens.

I definitely say accept/except, doesn't seem like that difficult of a concept to me...but hey.

hmm, i guess i'm of the ilk where i don't really mind mistakes people make or laziness, whatever it is. if they've got something good to say, that is more important.

its interesting reading some of the people who it quite obviously upsets, but yet their text has a number of errors, glass houses it seems :)

i do like to argue about it sometimes, and enjoy being the devil's advocate, other times i might be using my sub mini notebook ;)

the only thing i like to pick up on as people saying 'its my forte' and pronouncing it 'fortay' (add however many a's needed) and not 'fort', but it doesn't bother me, its just an interesting part of the evolution that language is.

intelligence isn't about proper grammar. the person may just be poorly educated and that may not be their fault, tolerance is valuable commodity.

i also like to use lower case, perhaps i'm using a lower case only terminal to write this, or perhaps its just aesthetically pleasing to me.

there is one person in particular who seems very upset about it all, but has made a lot of mistakes in both spelling, usage and even the very thing they are complaining about others not doing, i'm still trying to figure out if its a spoof or that they are so mad they ended up making so many mistakes :) but i can still understand what they are saying, i'm intelligent enough to figure it out without even blinking, i've adapted and my ' key thanks me for it ;)

C U L8R

hahaha..... I am guilty. I use the word literaly way too much. I use it in every sentance possible. Actually I even use it in sentances when it is completely inappropriate, but now its a habit and I cant drop it!!

I'm not saying that you always should use the simplest possible word.. It's just when I see that the longer words are chosen consistently over synonymous one-syllable words.

Supple Cow, tell me if you've encountered this. It's similar to some of your complaints.

People saying "cheque" when they mean "bill". As in "waiter, can I have the cheque, please?"

people who use words they dont understand in their sentances, it just annoys the hell out of me hearing words used incorrectly.

I can't stand people who use plz or thnx or anything like that online (and its usually my asian buddies [nothing personal])

Oh and stuff like 'Doesn't it?' or 'Wasn't that' makes no sense
Does not it? Was not that? Who the fuck made these up?

confusing then and than

I've always learned to put a comma after the last item in a list. For example: Red, green, blue, and white. But now it's "correct" to omit the last comma. I don't really mind it but it's a lot easier to read, in my opinion.

Regarding the "don't end a sentence with a preposition": how should I rephrase the question "Where are you from?"

Also, should the first word after a colon be capitalized since the phrase (or whatever you call it) is supposed to be a complete sentence by itself?

that's my biggest peeve right there. I learned the correct phrase from my older brother when i was little and started using it, and then I heard all my friends saying "I COULD care less". I even tried explaining to them that it didn't make sense but none of them seemed to get it. If you could care less, that means you have to care some in order to care less, so that really says nothing about your level of care other than the fact that you do actually care. The phrase "I COULDN'T care less" means you have no care at all. Granted, this is more of a logical thing than a grammatical thing, it pisses me off. I used to think it was just my dumb friends that said it, but then I heard it on tv, and now finally, someone feels the pain I feel.

I never EVER get "then" and "than" right. I always mix those two up for some reason, even though I know the right way to use them.

Amen, man, amen!

I'll join you on that one. Also, I usually put the punctuation for the sentance outside of the quote marks, which "looks better to me", for the same reason.

I hate the whole comma after the last item in a list thing, too. But I was under the impression that it was "correct" to do it that way. I've always yelled at those who don't. Is ommitting the last comma actually correct? THE PAIN!

The last comma in a list is a stylistic difference. The comma is usually left out by journalists, but put in by more formal writers. Personally, I prefer leaving it in for the sake of sense.

As for 'forte' and 'cheque'...they're French words that have been Americanized. Language is ever-changing. There are cases where it's good to resist, but others where it is not.

As for "Where are you from?"...I suppose you could rearrange it thusly: "From whence are you?" or "From where do you come?" However, those are quite awkward and a good example of why the "never end with a preposition" rule is crap.

I think my pet peeve is the misuse of the word "an" when used in front of words starting with "h." Example: "an historic occasion."

It's not an historic occasion, it's a historic occasion. H is not a vowel. If the H is pronounced, it's a, not an. You don't say "an harp" or "an horse" do you?

It's my pet peeve because when I say "a historic" I almost ALWAYS get some doof adopting a (not an) holier-than-thou attitude trying to smugly correct my grammar.

shakran, that's another rather fluid rule that you've struck upon. It depends on what accent you speak with - whether the 'h' is silent.

See <a href="http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/anhistoric.html">this</a> for more.

well that site kinda supports me ;) All it says is that if you use "an" wrong, it probably won't get you in trouble.

grammar is grammar, no matter what your accent. I've never heard anyone from Brooklyn say "an 'arp" or "an 'orse," and I've heard many Brooklynites refer to "a yooman bean" (a human being) without using "an."

My pet peeve would have to be people that send me emails that I have to unscramble. I mean, if you've got enough time to sit and write me an email, at least spell check it. I've always been one for spelling anyway, so I don't even read the email for content first. Now I read for spelling and grammar first. I've even been such an asshole as to correct the errors and send the message back to them without even reading it first. Kinda funny now that I think of it, I never got that message back. Hope it wasn't too terribly important!

'yooman bean'...that's an awesome example of glide insertion. I guess I actually did learn something in my Linguistics class. =)

You're right about the site supporting you, but I'm just mentioning that it's a common point of contention.

When I was in school that went something like this:

Engineering student asking direction from Liberal Art student:

Engineer: "Hey, where is the student center at?"

Liberal Art: "At the College of Inane Studies, we do not end our sentences in prepositions!"

Engineer: "O.K., where is the student center at, asshole."

My number one peeve is people who write like they talk, especially when their language is very loose. Trying to read a paper where there's a like, um, you know? at the beginning or ending of every sentence is enough to make me nauseous.

amonkie, s'much better for someone to convey their normal cadence than for them to use txt talk.

The substitution of "esoteric" for "aesthetic" riles me, and I'm amazed at how often I hear it.
My boss abbreviates "information" as "infro" rather than "info," and my wife, when faced with a connundrum, is in a "Catch 20-20." I feel it best for my personal well-being to not correct either one.

FIRST ANNUAL

Aaarrrgh! Nothing sends me into fits of rage so easily as this one does.
NOTHING is first annual, EVER!
You may call it "first ever" and then, after you have the second one a year later, then, THEN you may attach the word annual to it.
The world may explode tomorrow, and then, when it does, the resulting lack of existance would pretty much ensure that you won't be around to have your second annual whatever-the-fuck you had, thus rendering your Goddamned First annual thingamagig not very annual, now wouldn't it?
**Unclenches teeth**

As for my other pet peeves...
eXpecially v. especially
waRsh v. wash
affect v. effect
and finally,
the switching of lend and borrow.

For Fucks sake people, lend = to give, borrow = to take.
So no, I cannot borrow you five bucks, and don't even think about borrowing your best friend that DVD they wanted to watch.

This was forwarded to me a few months back. It's not all grammar, but it seems to apply:



Actual Analogies and Metaphors Found in High School Essays.



He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a Guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the danger of looking at a solar eclipse without one those boxes with a pinhole in it.

She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

I am learning disabled. I was born to drive you crazy.

I love how many posters in this thread have expressed their grammatical and idiomatic dislikes of the english language without verifying the accuracy of their pet-peeves. Yes, I'm sure someone will find an error in what I'm posting as well, but consider these points:

1) irregardless is not an accepted word. The supposed origin is that it's a hybridization of "regardless" and "irrespective", and though it has appeared in speech and some edited works, it will continue to be mocked as long as it is used. It is not the same as flammable/inflammable, and most dictionaries I surveyed suggested the word "regardless" instead of "irregardless."

2) the use of "an" before words that begin with "h" is dependent on the sound of the "h" in the following word. If the letter is prounounced as "huh" (like Howard, huckster, and hilarous), the "an" is not necessary; "a" will do.

from: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/esliart.html
OK, now time for my pet peeve, and it's really just a bastardization of an english idiom:

3) The use of the phrase "begs the question". Truthfully, this phrase will soon mean nothing more than "so...", as in a logical statement/question, or "raises the question".

e.g. current usage: "Many children die in school bus crashes every year. Which begs the question, Why do so many children continue to ride the bus?"

this is wrong, wrong, wrong....

"Begging the question" is the answering of a problem using the question as basis for solution, or reverting to circular reasoning.

We know God exists because we can see the perfect order of His Creation, an order which demonstrates supernatural intelligence in its design.

This answer "begs the question".


Listen to your newscaster on the radio/television, and count how many times it is used and misused. I would guess that 99% of the time, it's being used to mean "raises the question."
/end :)

when people say liberry instead of library. it's annoyed the hell out of me for as long as I can remember.

This is a valid use of "quote." It can be transitive, intransitive, or a noun. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=quote

I'm writing a story for the school newspaper, and a company's new release says:

It took me a few reads to find the error in that one. Not to defend atrocious grammar or anything, but "The health and safety of our customers are always our highest priority" reads awkwardly.

Is there another word for "anal retentive" that doesn't sound like you're holding your shit in? If there is, the word would describe my hypercritical reading. That's not to say that I don't make frequent errors.

Also, spellcheck has ruined my once flawless spelling. Alas, I am still one to call the kettle black with great frequency.

I am particularly bothered by menu misspellings which I notice nearly every time I eat out, ever in restaurants that have $25 entrees.

***edit*** People who say ecksetera instead of etcetera drive me fucking crazy! Also, lie-Barry in leiu of library.