Grammar Peeves

[telecom_goddess]

I hate all of the above listed...lose/loose being my number one hate. I'm soooo sick of people saying "I don't want to loose that thing".....GAHHHHHH. I also hate when people don't call things by their correct names...taters being an example.

But another one I hate that I see/hear all the time ...in JOURNALISM! is when they say "this movie/book/whatever is entitled blah blah blah" The correct usage, which I learned in journalism class, is "this movie is titled blah" Entitled means something completely different, as in entitlement whore

[ArcticChicken]

1) People who use the word 'literally' when they mean 'figuratively'.

I used to think that 'literally' meant 'figuratively' because I'd only heard it misused.

[Sapphire Silk]

Improper use of apostrophes.

In addition to your examples, the apostrophe also indicates possession and can be used with either the singular or the plural form.

Panacea's= belongs to Panacea.

Panaceas= more than one Panacea [plural form of Panacea]

Panaceas'= belongs to more than one Panacea or to a group of Panaceas.

Strunk and White's Elements of Style was required reading for me in my BA program in History. I still own my copy; it is the best book on writing I have ever read.

[Food Lady]

All of the above.

[Severen13]

your/you're
lose/loose
there/their/they're
principle/principal

I cannot believe how many people do not know how to use those words correctly.

And "a lot" is two words!

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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?"

[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!

[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...

[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.

[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.

[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."

[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.....