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Joined: 10/11/2007
Posts: 33
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We recently blogged about Taddle Creek's campaign against apostrophe abuse.
What's your grammatical pet peeve—or, if you’re more of an easy-going type, how about the most atrocious mistake you’ve ever spotted in print?
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My pet peeves are the misuse of its and it's, as well as incorrectly using an apostrophe to indicate plural, as in the case: "discount cigarette's".
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I get irritated when people confuse their and they're... and why is it that even well-educated people have a tendency to spell weird as wierd?
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I hate hearing, "If he WOULD HAVE asked me, then I would have told him," rather than "I if he HAD asked me, then I would have told him."
As for atrocious mistakes, I once read about a park which included a "water-oriented recreational resource." It took some extra reading to figure out the writer meant "lake." Why use so many extra words to say less? Not a mistake, I suppose, but not good writing.
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I find myself irritated and amused by the misuse of the word 'literally.' It seems these days people are using 'literally' to mean 'totally.' As in, "I literally laughed my head off." I have heard this word misused on the news. A few years ago I heard a news reporter say, "The police were literally combing the fields for hours." And I heard Terri Gross - of all people! - while interviewing an artist on NPR say, "... so it was about this time that you literally exploded on the scene." I would have thought Terri knew better than that.
I have no qualms about correcting people when they misuse this word. People rarely appreciate this kind gesture of mine. But what are my options? Stand by and watch the English language become literally pulled apart limb from limb? I don't think so.
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and their! I can't tell you how many emails I recieve with spelling errors. Hello! Spell-check!
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Hey spell check, receive, not recieve. Hello!
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I am annoyed by TV "heads" who use "right here" or "right there" when here or
there would suffice. Such as "right here in Houston" rather than "here in Houston". Or "see the tow truck right there" rather than "see the tow truck".
I am also amazed at the misues of loose, loosen, lose, etc. etc. etc.
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I have two pet peeves! One is the use of "at" at the end of a sentence and the other is the misuse of the pronouns him and her, as in, "Him & I went to the store." Frightening! Where did her and I get this at?
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Alright, here's what amuses me: you get one pet peeve, and just one -- that's what makes it your pet. All the rest are just peeves. There's no "One of my pet peeves is ..." or "I have two pet peeves." I guess it's just a peeve I have. I'm not sure I feel strongly enough about it to make it my pet.
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Joined: 10/11/2007
Posts: 33
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Ah! Maybe you should employ the method that a high school English teacher of mine used—just once, but to great effect.
Somewhere along the line, it seems, I’d picked up the nasty habit of saying irregardless, which of course isn’t a real word. I think it was probably an echo of my childhood, during which I indiscriminately applied prefixes, most famously referring to things that were “benext to one another.”
Anyhow, we were discussing King Lear—all these years later, I still can’t forget—and I raised my hand to make a comment. “Irregardless...,” I began, cut off as my teacher whipped around, finger pointed, hackles raised, and yelled: “UNACCEPTABLE!”
I never made the mistake again.
Anonymous wrote:
I have no qualms about correcting people when they misuse this word. People rarely appreciate this kind gesture of mine. But what are my options? Stand by and watch the English language become literally pulled apart limb from limb? I don't think so.
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Oh, it's hard to find a 'pet' of all my grammatical peeves. But lately, what's irked me most was 'should of,' as in, 'he should of called me first.' Hopefully, their excuse is they've recently read The Great Gatsby, and confused Fitzgerald's poetic license to be correct grammar. (I'm sure all reading this know it's 'should have.') As a teacher, I am particularly annoyed by other teachers who misuse the English language. Especially my friend's error of saying 'People that,' instead of 'People who.' I also share the peeves mentioned in previous posts. Finally, no one has mentioned the confusion of then and than - I found that error in Maclean's, our national news magazine (among other errors)!
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"He met Jim and I at the restaurant." "The quarterback threw the ball between he and the running back." It amazes me how many TV commentators and public figures do not understand the objective case.
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My pet peeve is more about a particular word usage than grammatical usage. I am no longer surprised that very, very few people know the correct meaning of the word "fulsome." They see the first three letters and believe the word is positive and never look it up. I have seen this word misused in the columns of conservative and liberal columns, and have heard it misused by an untold number of tv commentators.
SOURCE: Answers.com
fulsome
adj.
Offensively flattering or insincere.
Offensive to the taste or sensibilities.
Arousing disgust.
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A good number of my students throw 'there' into the mix of there, their, and they're.
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You spelled receive wrong yourself--spell check. (i before e except after c).
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Joined: 5/1/2008
Posts: 3
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So many peeves…so little time. I agree with all those comments posted previously, although I would argue with this assertion: "there can be only one pet peeve." It's possible to have more than one favorite—the usual meaning of the word—as well as to have more than one, um, pet. (I personally have two cats, one dog, and hundreds of dust bunnies.) That reminds me of several more peeves, pet or otherwise, that I can add to the list: "more unique"…"is comprised of"…"plan ahead"…pre when used with anything that creates a tautology or illogical/impossible act, such as "preboarding [a plane]"…the use of a plural pronoun (they, their, them) to avoid using a gender-specific singular (he or she)…and cliches (you can no longer use the phrase "think outside the box" and really be thinking outside the box).
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