A small pet peeve of mine (and I say this with a grin)...

[renaldo75]

I don't want to step on any toes, but I did notice the 'Your Welcome' immediately when it was posted. And even though I still haven't looked it up to see how it was actually registered, my inclination in looking at the auction was to not even look to see how it was doing in the bidding. So I guess that is a bit of a prejudice on my part...

I always did well with spelling & grammar in school. I try my best not to be driven nuts by things being done incorrectly. (Even though it usually does.) Since I catch myself using the wrong word more often than I like any more. Hopefully before I've hit send... Having said that, one common mistake I see more and more often that really confounds me is 'that' used for 'than' and vice versa. I don't get it. They mean two entirely different things.

I recently ran across a neat little book that I will enjoy reading when I have the time. The title alone was all it took.
[But it didn't help that it and everything else in the store was 40% off.]

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue
The Untold History of English

[Patrushka]

Alexa. I love it! Your post brought the misuse of lose and loose to mind.

Reldon, we'll be waiting for a book report.

[Don Rawson]

Yeah, I think your right, Chris...that's one of my pet peeves to.

[newtohosta-no more]

I'll bet Don just posted that "with a grin".

[John]

The book sounds fascinating from the reviews on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Our-Magnificent-B ... 1592403956

[Diana]

Anguished English by Richard Lederer is another really good one on word use/mis-use. He has written many on the subject of words. One of his early ones was Joy of Lex that came out on the heels of another book that some of you may remember, Joy of Sex. That dates me.

-Diana

[Ginger]

Ya'll quit making fun of the way I spell!

Just kidding, I am not making any statement on this one, because I am the worst speller and punctuation??? forget about it

Ginger

[Linda P]

I am an incorrigble corrector of improper word use and sentence structure, married to a man who couldn't put together a proper sentence if his life depended on it.
Somehow, our marriage has survived nearly 45 years of this verbal incompatibility. I sometimes have to resort to calling one of my children to gain a translation.
My theory is that if you can use the wrong word consistently, without fail, then you could surely learn and apply the right word. My husband has proven my theory false.
He has never met a sentence that cannot accept a preposition at the end, and verb tense means nothing to him. He is particularly fond of putting the word 'already' at the end of a sentence.
He is a farmer, and there are many times that he's late for a meal. I usually go ahead and eat without him, and invariably he will come in the kitchen, look at the food, and ask,
"You ate yet?" I used to answer, "No, I'm only seven."


Linda P

[Pieter]

I am an incorrigble corrector of improper word use and sentence structure........

I'm incorrigible as well, Linda, particularly when it comes to spelling, such as 'lavendar' for instance I drive my wife nuts sometimes when she asks this foreigner for the correct spelling of a word, but, in all fairness to her, she is dyslexic, or should I say 'dislexyc'. By the same token, I can get very screwed up on grammar structure sometimes, particularly when I get excited over something and my native Dutch grammar structure percolates up again. Guess all this does, is prove we're only human.... thank goodness!

[Linda P]

Pieter,
What a boring world it would be if we all expressed our thoughts in exactly the same manner. I have learned over the years to be more tolerant, and find myself falling into bad language habits as I grow older.
I grew up listening to my grandparents speak their native language, which is also Dutch, but they would not teach us. They taught only some words to their own children, so that they could have 'private' discussions in a very large and busy household without having to find a place where the children could not hear.

Linda P

[Annie]

This doesn't bother me at all LOL. I had to think twice about if I should use don't or doesn't, I'm bad at grammar

My husband always laughs because I say warsh rag instead of dish cloth, I also say sodie instead of pop or soda. Oh and there is a baby doll I know it's spelt doll, but I say dowl

I have always been bad with this I also use spell check... a lot! LOL.

Now I'm afraid to post this, because I KNOW I messed something up

[playinmud]

Besides the misuse of the written word, the misuse of the spoken word annoys me too. There is a gal at my office who I have nicknamed the "axe girl". She'll come into my office and say, "Can I axe you something?" The first time she did this I was tempted to throw up my arms in a protective pose and shout, "No, please don't axe me". Sigh, she really is a sweet person, shame on me for making fun.

[party_music50]

lol! playinmud, there is one time when the use of 'axe' is *perfect* and absolutely appropriate... it's when Marisa Tomei, in 'My Cousin Vinnie', says her line: "Now I axe ya... would you give a %^$! what kind of pants the $0^ of a *|+^# who shot you was wearin'?!" LOL!!!!! I love her in that movie!!!

And, BTW, I'm always bothered by the person who asks if they can ask a question. They just did. lol!

[Tigger]

Related:
"I want to tell you how much I appreciate this thread."

You want to? but for some reason you can't?

For Christmas I received The Lexicographer's Dilemma which details the history of the development of English grammar. (yeah, pretty geeky) I'm now up to the late 17th century, when John Dryden first started instructing people about the proper "rules" of writing English (including the famous: do not end a sentence with a preposition). Recognize that Shakespeare—who lived more than half a century earlier—was, by today's standards, pretty awful at spelling and grammar. See where rules have gotten us!

To the point of the pet peeve: I'm with George Bernard Shaw, who though wed all do just fine if we left out all the pesky apostrophes. But then people would still write "youre" when they meant "your."

[imagooch]

I have a few too. I was a teacher and of course I saw some "interesting" spellings over the years. Some of my pet peeves are:
ad for add, also add for ad
where , were, wear misused

The spelling someone wanted is touche with an acute accent over the last e. It is pronounced 'too-shay'

It is no wonder that learners make so many errors when they learn English if, as was stated earlier, we make so many when we speak and write.

And English usage is difficult too - I have this in one of my files....

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plura l of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick'

[newtohosta-no more]

You really struck a chord with this post, Chris!

I remember my kids had a teacher while in Middle School who had a chart on the wall that she had made for the class. It showed all the combination of words that she called "fatal errors". For example: too, to, two......where, were, wear......
your, you're, etc. It was a fairly expansive list. The students were told that if they submitted a paper with any of these errors, they would not just have to correct the mistake, but they'd have to rewrite the ENTIRE paper with the corrections! Many learned quickly not to make those mistakes.

[party_music50]

"fatal errors"?! That's a little harsh, isn't it? and hardly appropriate. but at least she didn't kill the kids if they made a simple error. Someone should have corrected her choice of adjectives.

[newtohosta-no more]

Actually I thought it was a good term to use since committing one of these "fatal errors" meant you also killed any chance of getting an A on that paper.

[party_music50]

ah. good reasoning.

I liked my teacher better... she gave you a little star on a chart if you did well -- and with enough stars you got to open the cabinet and take a lollipop (she had LONG strings of lollipops hanging inside the cabinet door).

[JaneG]

I am hesitant to reply here, I'm sure my posts have ample examples of poor grammar and misuse of the English language. Regardless, there are some things which catch my eye every time I come across them. In addition to the examples already cited, I cringe when I see "then" used in place of "than", as in "I would rather swim then sink". I used to work with a very well educated man who always made this mistake.

Imagooch, that's a cute snippet you posted.

For a humorous approach to punctuation (with a special fondness for the comma), Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss is a fun and educational read. The name of the book is taken from this little tale...

A panda bear walks into a bar and orders a sandwich. The waiter brings him the sandwich. The panda bear eats it, pulls out a pistol, kills the waiter, and gets up and starts to walk out.

The bartender yells for him to stop. The panda bear asks, "What do you want?" The bartender replies, "First you come in here, order food, kill my waiter, then try to go without paying for your food."

The panda bear turns around and says, "Hey! I'm a Panda. Look it up!" The bartender goes into the back room and looks up panda bear in the encyclopedia, which read: "Panda: a bear-like marsupial originating in Asian regions. Known largely for it's stark black and white coloring. Eats shoots and leaves."

A comma in the phrase "eats shoots and leaves" can make all the difference in the world.

My personal struggle is when to use affect vs effect.