Grammar pet peeves!

[faeriegrl]

There seems to be a new trend in grammatical errors where I work. I keep receiving emails from coworkers saying, "Such and such happened on today."

Prior to working here, I have never encountered someone saying that.

"It happened today" or "It happened on Sunday" is acceptible, but isn't "On Today" incorrect?

I have received this type of email from a few different people I work with. One person is usually well-spoken and he started it. The girl who recently began doing this used to sit by him and I think she wanted to sound good, so she picked up on this?

 

[MoniqueU]

When people say I seen something. It's like nails on a chalkboard for me. Also when people say me and so and so. And the their, there, they're thing and we're and were.

 

[Alaska Catdog]

I don't like it when people say "very unique" it is just not right. Unique is unique there is no very about it.

I will say that when I was a child I would say "amnt" as in "I amnt going to eat that liverwurst." It made sense to me at the time and even though I know "amnt" is not a word I think it should be. Sometimes I find myself saying it when in heated conversations (ok, arguments) with friends and family.

Upon occassion I've even heard myself saying "you amnt" as in "you amnt going to make me eat that liverwurst" which though very unique is just not right.

 

[darlak]

I also am bothered by the phrase on today as well as the equally popular on yesterday and on tomorrow.

My biggest personal grammatical pet peeve though is conversate. It is not even a word. You converse with someone or you can have a conversation with someone. Where the heck did this term even come from?

 

[Eeyores Butterfly]

Have you seen the commercial for DirectTV with the man who cannot use proper grammar to save his life? I cannot stand the commercial and will not even consider using their product on principle! "Recordificate?" "Recordify" "Pau-say?" (Pause). It is enough to drive me up the wall!

My number one grammar pet peeve has always been using good when you should use the word well.

Example:
Person 1: "How are you doing?"
Person 2: "I'm good"

The phrase is I'm well! Argh! The other grammar pet peeve for me is text speak and consistent lack of capitalization or punctuation. I'm not talking about the occasional typo, but those people who never punctuate or capitalize. I simply skip their posts when I see them because they make me go cross-eyed. If I can capitalize and punctuate now (I have a fifteen pound cat sleeping on my hands), then so can they.

 

[Silly Little Pixie]

The other grammar pet peeve for me is text speak and consistent lack of capitalization or punctuation. I'm not talking about the occasional typo, but those people who never punctuate or capitalize. I simply skip their posts when I see them because they make me go cross-eyed. If I can capitalize and punctuate now (I have a fifteen pound cat sleeping on my hands), then so can they.

I totally agree! My SIL writes so horribly- no caps and endless run-on sentences- that it's almost impossible to read. The "text revolution" has only enboldened her and made her feel like she was cool or something. OMG. She never uses plurals, either. She's also 40.

My MIL (her stepmom) just sent her an email saying basically, perhaps you should work on your own writing/grammar skills, and then you might be better able to help your daughter in school.

She can only hope she won't hear back!

 

[cinmell]

My grammar pet peeves are:

1. Yous guys
2. I seen as in I seen him at the store.
3. Where you at? Where's he at?

 

[Aliceacc]

This one is punctuation, not grammar:

I hate it when people insist on adding an apostrophe to any word that ends in an "s." For example: "I bought my kid's their birthday present's."

And I have to agree about posts that are one long paragraph, stream of consciousness, with no periods or capitals. I just don't have the energy to sort out what the poster is trying to say, so I normally skip those as well.

 

[Bella the Ball 360]

Semantic errors drive me crazy! For example, I have a friend who says , " It's a MUTE point. " (moot) OR uses "condenscending" instead of condescending. Then there is the ever popular hi-sterical instead of hysterical. How a about the new trend to drop 't' in a word. For example,
"sit en" intead of sitting. I have even seen it on commercials. EWWW now that really makes one look dumb.

I will admit,that my own personal demons
are affect and effect. I ALWAYS have to look them up to be SURE I am using them properly.

I come from Mass and we are famous for dropping the g at the end of an -ing word. For example, runnin' instead of running. I admit I am sometimes guilty of it if I am home etc. However, when I speak in public etc I am very aware of it and try to always articulate the final 'g'.

I will also admit that. I
can be guilty of a few run-on sentences when I am being a lazy writer(i.e. on this board).

QUESTION: Why is it that sometimes the overtype function shows up on this board? Notice the break in the sentences above. That is because when I tried to edit , it just suddenly goes into overtype mode. How do I rectify this? I know how to do it in Word but I do not know what causes it here.

 

[KimR]

Here's one I've seen recently: 'all the sudden' insead of 'all of a sudden'.

Also, incorrect verb conjugation makes me crazy. I wonder if people do this on purpose (WHY???) or they honestly don't know any better.

 

[ford family]

I come from Mass and we are famous for dropping the g at the end of an -ing word. For example, runnin' instead of running. I admit I am sometimes guilty of it if I am home etc. However, when I speak in public etc I am very aware of it and try to always articulate the final 'g'.

Years ago I had a boss who came from Boston. Whenever you told him something that he didn't really understand he would reply "interesting" but pronounced "ennerestin" We used to parody him by saying "So, you tell me the word ends in a g. Ennerstin."

ford family

 

[Jaimee]

I am also bothered by "on tomorrow". I work in a call center and a person who sits near me says that all of the time. She also says "on a daily base" (instead of "basis"). It drives me crazy.

 

[RUDisney]

By biggest grammatical pet peeve is the use of that and which in a sentence.

The concept seems simple. You use that when a dependent clause follows it and you do not use a comma. You use which when an independent clause follows and the use of a comma is required.

It drives me batty when people cannot get this right. It drives me battier when they don't care that they got the concept wrong because "everyone else" writes it their way. UGH! No they don't!

I also hate the misuse of who and whom.

 

[SC Minnie]

My biggest pet peeve come from my 8th grade English teacher. He was a stickler about the phrase 'a lot' when referring to a great number of something such as 'Little Jimmy plays with his favorite toy a lot.' It is not allot. It is 2 words a lot.

 

[McRed]

What ever happened to "Skimmed" Milk? It became so common to call it "Skim" Milk, that now it "Skim Milk" is the acceptable name and pronunciation.

 

[ChrisFL]

This one is punctuation, not grammar:

I hate it when people insist on adding an apostrophe to any word that ends in an "s." For example: "I bought my kid's their birthday present's."

That's making me mad too, and I'm now seeing it all the time. Just yesterday I was at a shopping center where there is a gym, and one of the signs for it showed "Gold's Gym Athletic's"........Athletics isn't possessive!!!!!

I also see "lose" as in the opposite of "win" ALWAYS spelled "loose". It's as if some textbook that every kid read was wrong and it just spread from there.

Sadly, I think proper grammar is dead and the internet is spreading the killing of it.

 

[ericamanda01]

My pet peeve is punctuation when I am reading. I can't stand too many commas. I read a paper last term in my writing class that was 6 pages long and it had 196 commas in it. Yes I counted them. It was so hard to read.

 

[CraftyMouse]

Mine are:

• Should of/Could of/Would of...it's Should Have/Could Have/Would Have people!
• Double Negatives of any kind
• Well/Good...Well is an adverb, good is an adjective. The proper to response to "How are you?" or "How do you feel?" should include well, not good.

 

[CraftyMouse]

Oh, and can I add supposively/supposably. The word is supposedly.

Okay, I think I'm done now. I feel so much better!

 

[Mom2Evie]

Have you seen the commercial for DirectTV with the man who cannot use proper grammar to save his life? I cannot stand the commercial and will not even consider using their product on principle! "Recordificate?" "Recordify" "Pau-say?" (Pause). It is enough to drive me up the wall!

You know that commercial is a joke, right? The man in the commercial is a comedian, Frank Caliendo. He's impersonating George Bush and his ability to make up words.
www.frankcaliendo.com