Grammar Peeves

[blas]

There's some words (midwesterners will get it) that I don't think people realize are wrong, they just grew up hearing them and will always say them.

Supposeably, like Brenn noted, is one of them. Taters is another. Crick is another. We've just been upriver stupid for too long

[BrenDAnn]

Too true, blas. A couple of others are warsh and ambliance (ambulance). Upriver stupid made me laugh, by the way.

[blas]

It's ambuhlance around here

[Jester]

Crick is another.

Obviously crick is not a body of water smaller than a stream, but I have no problem with people who, due to their regional accent, PRONOUNCE the word creek as crick, as long as they WRITE it correctly. Hell, being a Westerner, I drop a lot of g's off the ends of my words when speaking, but I don't do it so much when typin', if y'all are gettin' my meanin'.


AND, I forgot my number one grammar peeve: my MOTHER.

Seriously.

It's because of her that whenever I hear someone speaking incorrectly, I feel a compulsive urge to correct them. Why? Because I hear my mother's voice IN MY HEAD, telling me the CORRECT way. Whether it's me or someone else doing it, my mom's voice is ALWAYS THERE!

Damn it, Mom--stop that!

(My revenge is sweet and simple, happens frequently, and goes something like this:
ME: "So me and Little Red were hanging out at the bar--"
MOM: "Little Red and *I*."
ME: "No, you weren't there. I would have remembered."
MOM: "..."

[Food Lady]

Hee hee--nice pwnage on your mom, Jester. Also, irregardless is not a word. The word is regardless. Irregardless would mean without without regard--a double negative.

[BlaqueKatt]

While we're on the subject, here's a fun and useful linky for you all: Common Errors In English Usage.

sharing with my "grammar nazis" FB group.....

[Eireann]

Improper use of apostrophes. My freshman English teacher in high school taught me many valuable things, such as the fact that the apostrophe TAKES THE PLACE of the missing letter in a word. Hence, "could not" becomes "couldn't". The apostrophe takes the place of the "o".

When someone refers to a time period - say, the 1920s - the apostrophe is NOT used, because no letters are missing. You wouldn't write "the nineteen-twentie's". It's "the 1920s", "the 1930s", etc. Or, to shorten it, you would write, "the '20s", or "the '30s". Again, the apostrophe takes the place of the missing text (in this case, numbers rather than letters). Plural nouns do not use an apostrophe.

He also taught us that when in doubt as to which personal pronoun to use when speaking of yourself and another person or a group of people, think of the form you would use if speaking only of yourself. Thus, "he and I went to the store", or "she and I saw a movie."

[MoonCat]

ETA: I thought of another one. "Supposeably"...Is. Not. A word! The word is supposedly. I grit my teeth and fight telling whoever says that non-word off every time I hear it.

Oh God, THIS ONE. My co-worker "Wilma" uses this all the time. This woman has a degree! What's really weird is that she writes "supposedly" but always, always SAYS "supposeably." I don't get it.

And forget trying to convince anyone that "weird" is the correct spelling. It doesn't fit the "I before E" rule so people insist that "wierd" is correct.

Oh..here's another. People who believe they must use a capital letter on words like black, blue, green, etc.; or with things like oak, cherry, pine, etc. "Black" is only capped when referring to people and even then, I don't think it's considered proper all the time. I once told a co-worker that things like "blue" or "oak" don't get capped because they are not proper nouns, such as names. His response: "Blue is the name of the color." I gave up at that point.

[Jester]

Hee hee--nice pwnage on your mom, Jester.

Not really pwnage so much as bad grammar drives her NUTS, so whenever I do that (which is all the time....one of my worst grammatical habits, to be honest), she can't help herself but to comment. And I, of course, can't help myself but to poke fun at her. This has only been going on for, oh, the last 30 years or so.

[SongsOfDragons]

Everything thus far mentioned in this thread, plus a couple more...

Affect and effect. "The effect of the rollercoaster affected my stomach." Small peeve, it's tricky, but the whole sentence screws up if the vowel at the beginning is wrong...

Faze and phase. "I was not fazed by Kitty phasing through the wall." GAH THIS ONE. I know it looks like a silly word but faze is real!! Though I believe a well-known American author - Twain IIRC, I might be wrong - got it wrong too, so they're in good company...

[BrenDAnn]

Ha you're welcome BlaqueKatt! Hope your FB group enjoys that. Mooncat, sorry you have to deal with "Wilma". Eireann I am so glad to see that at least ONE professor taught the proper use of the apostrophe! If only more people understood it!

[MaggieTheCat]

When "that" is used to refer to a person instead of "who."

Jane is the one WHO used the blue pencil. I'm the one WHO made that pie. A lot of people like to use "that" in place of "who" in those instances.

Also, people who (see what I did there? not "people that...") think that when referring to yourself and another person, you ALWAYS use "and I." Not true in every situation. To know whether to use "I" or "me", take out the other person's name and see how it sounds:

Jane and I are going to go to the store. That's correct, because if you took out Jane, you'd say "I am going to go to the store."

Would you like to come to the store with Jane and me? That's correct, because if you took out Jane, you'd have, "Would you like to come to the store with me?" You would not say, "Would you like to come to the store with I?"

[Eireann]

"Sherbert" instead of the proper word, sherbet.

Bet bet bet bet bet. NOT bert. Bet. Sure, Burt. No.

Sherbet. Sherbet. Sherbet.

Probably. NOT "prolly". Probably.

Presumably, NOT "presumedly".

Then there's the improper use of the adverb "hopefully". You do something hopefully - look at another person, for example. Yet almost everyone says, for example, "Hopefully, this will happen." What? Where's the verb? This will happen [verb] hopefully?

[MoonCat]

"Sherbert" instead of the proper word, sherbet.

Bet bet bet bet bet. NOT bert. Bet. Sure, Burt. No.

Sherbet. Sherbet. Sherbet.

YES. YES. YES.

Our friends had a beautiful orange/white cat named....Bert. Short for....Sherbert. Arrgh.

Oh here's one...How do you pronounce the word "mauve"?

It rhymes with "cove." Most people say "mawve". Makes me grit my teeth when I get customers saying that.

[chikenlady]

Another misuse I detest is the wrong use of ground/floor and roof/ceiling.
The ground is outside and the roof is on the outside of the house.