English, you are without

[mattypants]

so, i know the most [seemingly] common english usage regulators are the grammar nazi with their 'their/youre/apostrophys' pet peeves... that can elicit extreme rage from some, but what else gets some of you?

verbifying nouns? lingering prepositions? certain words that 'shouldnt exist', like 'irrigardless'?


discuss/share linguistic pet peeves [on english of course]

i myself am not too bothered by things most people would consider 'wrong' in english, but when people use 'literally' when they mean 'figuratively'.... i face palm... until something comes in to replace the empty space there

Considering I've almost got an English degree (6 weeks to go, w0ot!), I'm not as fussy as people think I'm going to be. At least, not outwardly. -Grins- Typos happen, and I don't even mind 'chatspeak' as long as it's by text or in a chatroom. It's a linguistic evolution, after all.

Apostrophes (or lack thereof) irritate me. As well as when something says; "Ye Olde Sweet Shoppe". It isn't a 'Y'! It's meant to be 'The', it's just that the thorn symbol from Old English didn't carry over to the printing press, so a 'Y' was used instead...but it's still 'The'. -Twitches-

[mattypants]

Originally Posted by Nialla

Considering I've almost got an English degree (6 weeks to go, w0ot!), I'm not as fussy as people think I'm going to be. At least, not outwardly. -Grins- Typos happen, and I don't even mind 'chatspeak' as long as it's by text or in a chatroom. It's a linguistic evolution, after all.

Apostrophes (or lack thereof) irritate me. As well as when something says; "Ye Olde Sweet Shoppe". It isn't a 'Y'! It's meant to be 'The', it's just that the thorn symbol from Old English didn't carry over to the printing press, so a 'Y' was used instead...but it's still 'The'. -Twitches-

i'd call it 'linguistic change'

omg, i actually read about the 'ye' thing recently... i just made my peace with it, cause most people dont know about using y for thorn, so they dont know better

T'be honest, I did a module of Old English last year, which is the only reason I know about it. -Chuckles- If you ever want a good read regarding linguistic change (especially slang), I'd suggest 'Words, Words Words' by David Crystal. There's an academic that doesn't take himself too seriously. (Something which is unfortunately rare in English criticism).

[Owen]

I am a grammar nazi, but I can usually keep my impulse to correct people in check. However, there is one thing that, for some reason, annoys me above all else: I hate it when people use "ironic" to describe something that isn't ironic. As one of my old high school teachers said, "Irony is not getting in a car accident with your math teacher; irony is getting into a car accident with your driving instructor." Or, as one of my friends said, if there is some sort of contradiction involved, then the situation can be described as ironic. Is that so hard to understand? Gah!!

[Chandra]

"Nuke-you-lar."

*gnashes teeth*

I do correct people's grammar a lot, but it really doesn't bug me at all. It only bugs me when you're 18 and using the grammar a 5 year old would suggest.

[Chandra]

Originally Posted by mattypants

verbifying nouns?

I see what you did there!

[Maddy]

Walls of text with little punctuation.

[Gambit]

For some of us English is not our first language, so have some sympathy for us and forgive our grammar errors haha

[Eccentric]

Originally Posted by mattypants

so, i know the most [seemingly] common english usage regulators are the grammar nazi with their 'their/youre/apostrophes' pet peeves... that can elicit extreme rage from some, but what else gets some of you?

verbifying nouns? lingering prepositions? certain words that 'shouldnt exist', like 'irregardless'?


discuss/share linguistic pet peeves [on english of course]

i myself am not too bothered by things most people would consider 'wrong' in english, but when people use 'literally' when they mean 'figuratively'.... i face palm... until something comes in to replace the empty space there

i just tell myself that people are using the word "literally" figuratively as an intensifier ^.^
i don't really mind these little mistakes, but let me try to think of some common ones
there's "I could care less" i think that's a popular one around nazi circles

i do dislike the death of the subjunctive
saying "if i was a millionaire" instead of "if i were a millionaire" is so common and it doesn't even feel incorrect much now

[L|L]

Subject-verb disagreement
Ending sentences in prepositions (when unnecessary)

So, henceforth, ending sentences in prepositions is something up with which I will not put. :P

[MusicIsLife]

Originally Posted by Maddy

Walls of text with little punctuation.

This^

I can't call myself a grammar nazi, partially because I spelled grammar as "grammer" up til like two years ago xD and my grammar is nowhere near perfect as it is.

That being said, I am going into english in Uni, so I have a list of grammar pet peeves.

Mixing up their/they're/there, hear/here, now/know, breathe/breath(this one drives me INSANE).

chatspeak, most of the time. I dont mind it occasionally, like IMO, TL;DR, GTFO, WTF, LOL, LMFAO, etc. I cant stand u, y, those ones.

anddd peopleee whooo typeee likeee thissss. -_-

[Gaetan]

I am a grammar nazi. However, I cannot claim to be a spelling nazi--as I'm rubbish at that anyway.

One of my pet peeves, are quotation marks. I agree with their usage normally like...He said, "I want pie." I'm happy with that, as it's an entire sentence inside the quotes. However, sometimes quotes aren't like that and are just one or two words "like this". Not a full sentence, but a section of the sentence. In that case, my usage there was technically wrong, as the punctuation is supposed to be on the inside.. But I say it's right!

[mattypants]

Originally Posted by Chandra

I see what you did there!

^
haha, you two caught me
v

Originally Posted by Eccentric

i just tell myself that people are using the word "literally" figuratively as an intensifier ^.^
i don't really mind these little mistakes, but let me try to think of some common ones
there's "I could care less" i think that's a popular one around nazi circles

i do dislike the death of the subjunctive
saying "if i was a millionaire" instead of "if i were a millionaire" is so common and it doesn't even feel incorrect much now

subjunctive? in my english? lol, i cant wait till we finally get rid of the case system! who vs whom? who cares

[biisme]

Well, my dad is quite a grammar, language, and etymology nerd, so he's always going off about different things. One of the ones that stuck is the difference between "lay" and "lie" and how people interchange them!!! "To lie down" is something one person or animal can do...however "to lay" must me done to something else. Gah. Weird phrasing.

Ex: I lie down. correct
Ex: I lay the book down. I lay my body down. I lay the paper down. correct
Ex: I lay down. wrong

Oh, and thanks to my friend, I now hate when people say "addicting" instead of "addictive" in a sentence. Chocolate is addictive.

[Chandra]

Originally Posted by Eccentric

But hang on, is it possible to spell "irregardless" wrong if it isn't actually a real word?

----------

Originally Posted by Gaetan

One of my pet peeves, are quotation marks. I agree with their usage normally like...He said, "I want pie." I'm happy with that, as it's an entire sentence inside the quotes. However, sometimes quotes aren't like that and are just one or two words "like this". Not a full sentence, but a section of the sentence. In that case, my usage there was technically wrong, as the punctuation is supposed to be on the inside.. But I say it's right!

I addressed this once before in a thread. You are not wrong! Keep the dream alive!

----------

Originally Posted by mattypants

^
haha, you two caught me

I guess technically you gerundified a noun; you verbified the word "verb", and then you added -ing to turn it back into a gerund (a verb acting as a noun). So what we have here is the word "verb", which is a noun, dressed up as a verb, playing the part of a noun. Bravo.


Okay, I think I'm done quoting people for now.

[mattypants]

Originally Posted by Chandra

But hang on, is it possible to spell "irregardless" wrong if it isn't actually a real word?

I addressed this once before in a thread. You are not wrong! Keep the dream alive!

re irregardless: i dunno... thats the point i think
i agree with the "tiny bit" of that. "it works", ive heard.

[Markio]

My only real pet peeve is when people shout when they don't have to. People around me don't seem to understand the concept of the "inside voice." That really has nothing to do with grammar, though.

I don't like when people say, "Me and so-and-so." It should be "so-and-so and I."

Finally, when I quote something, I tend to put the comma or period after the quotation, "like this". The reason is because I'm not quoting an entire sentence, and so the period doesn't seem like it should be included. What is correct? "This?" Or "This"?

[Chip]

There is a truly marvelous book for grammar nazis, called "Eats, shoots and leaves" which is not only written in a delightfully funny tone, but gives serious, clear, practical advice on some of the most hard-to-remember syntactic and grammatical rules.

There are plenty of grammar errors that annoy me, but probably the most irritating to me is the absolutely breathless text that people post -- sometimes 30 or 40 lines or more -- with absolutely no paragraph breaks, run-on sentences, and the like. I see a block of text like that and my first thought is "Um, do you know where the "enter" key is? Do you even know about making paragraphs at all?"