Grammar Nazi
*Note - I am in no way criticizing the people who make these mistakes, just the mistakes themselves. Also, I do not claim to have perfect grammar.
I think I have pretty good grammar. I've always been a language person. I'm a voracious reader, have had 8 years (4 in high school and 4 in college) of Spanish, 1 year in high school of Latin, and 1 semester of French in college. I also took 2 more English courses than I needed in high school and 1 more than I needed in college. Grammar just clicked for me one year in high school, and it sure as hell wasn't because of the teacher. I just started to understand everything out of the blue. Things like double negatives don't bother me in day-to-day speech because I'm so used to them. But to have a grammatical or punctuation error in something that is published by a business is unacceptable. All that said, here is a list of my biggest grammar pet peeves. I've thrown in some spelling/meaning peeves too.
1. The misuse of your/you're. There was a high school kid who died in a car accident, and the local newspaper ran a picture of some girls writing on the road in chalk. They had written, "Your going to be missed." Oy vey. Example of correct usage: Dad, you're not going to believe what I did to your car.
2. The misuse of their/they're/there. Example of correct usage: They're going over there to their parents' house.
People, if you have graduated from high school, there is no reason why you shouldn't know the difference between these words.
3. The incorrect usage of his/her vs. their. It makes me cringe when someone says, "Everyone get out their book." While I understand that it is awkward to say, "Everyone get out his or her book," it's worth it.
It would be correct in the following example, however: "Michael Jackson and John Wayne Gacy co-wrote a book on childcare. Did everyone buy a copy of their book?"4. Total disregard for the subjunctive tense.
It is NEVER correct to say, "If I was..." The subjunctive is used when something has not yet happened or cannot possibly happen. For example, "If I were the president, I would outlaw incorrect grammar." Am I the president? No. Not yet, anyway. Unfortunately, some songwriters have trouble with this concept:
"If I Was Invisible" - Clay Aiken
"What If God Was One of Us?" - Some chick from the early 90s
"If I was your girl, all the things I'd do to you" - Janet Jackson, "If"
5. Some random spelling/meaning issues:
You affect the effect.
Definitely has the word finite in it.
There is a rat in separate.
There is a parent in apparent.
I don't care if irregardless is in the dictionary; it's not a word.
6. Incorrect usage of adjectives/adverbs. Adjectives describe, adverbs tell how something is done (quickly, softly). It is never ok to say, "I'm doing good." You're doing well. One gray area is the difference between "I feel well" and "I feel good." I would think both are correct depending on the context. If you're using well as the opposite of sick then "I feel well" would be correct. Otherwise, it means that you're good at touching something. "I feel good" would be correct if you were using it as the opposite of feeling crappy.
Can you tell I'm really bored at work tonight?
posted by Jenny G @ 5:53 PM
7 Comments:
I would also add:
Using "less" when you should be using "fewer"--same with much and many--it's all about count and non-count nouns people
For example--"I have less money than I used to" is correct, but not "there were less people on the bus on the way back"
Also, "allot" is a word, but "alot" is not.
I tire quickly of the confusion some people have between "I" and "me"--one's a subject pronoun and one's an object pronoun, and the best test is to use it by itself to see if it works. For example:
If you were to mistakenly think it should be "They gave the prize to John and I", then try "They gave the prize to I" to see how stupid it sounds.
We soooo would get beaten up on the playground. We sound like Ralph on The Simpsons.
YES!!! I hate when people use less when they mean fewer!! And when people try to sound intelligent by using "I" no matter what. "Tom's going to the beach with Jim and I." Nope, sorry. You need the objective case since it's the object of a preposition. I don't see alot too much though.
"It tastes like grandma!"
The feeling well/good thing... one of the things we gripe about on the 7thHev forum at twop is the writers' insistance on characters saying "I feel badly." It's just... well, it makes us laugh.
I do use "alot" alot. It's completely an antiquated word that's fallen out of favor, to the point where it's no longer considered to exist as a word. The correct approved usage is "a lot." But I use it, because it somehow looks more correct to me. When I went to elementary school, we were taught that either could be used, but that "a lot" was preferred. It's an eccentricity to use it now, I suppose.
You are too cute. You remind me of a professor that I have had in graduate school. She hands out what she calls the dynamics of english the first day of class. She's a mean, mean, mean woman. :) I had a problem with pronoun anecedants (is that even spelled right) before her class...not so much now. :)
katie - You can always count on TWoP for great snark. Except on the American Idol forum lately...
jennifer - That would be me as a teacher. My students would hate me.
HALLELUJAH! I've finally met someone who is as picky about proper grammar as I am. I seriously cringe when I read "Your not going to believe me when I tell you..." It's not "your," people! It's "YOU'RE" as in "you ARE"! I used to get picked on in my high school English class by fellow classmates who tended to think I was a prude when it came to using correct vocabulary.
Another thing I absolutely can't tolerate is when people are text messaging or AOL instant messaging and write "What r u doing? I stopped by ur house earlier and u weren't home." I want to strangle them! Since when did "ur" translate into "your"? Someone please tell me that! It kills me, I tell you, it just KILLS me. I'm so glad to know it's not just me.
OH, and once I was on the telephone with a friend of mine while I was reading a letter from her and she had made several mistakes such as "alot," incorrect usage of your/you're, etc. In the meantime she kept asking me what I thought about the situation she was explaining in the letter, and I kept saying, "Meredith, I don't know, but the word "a lot" has a space between "a" and "lot," and "your" should be "Y-O-U-apostrophe-R-E." It really killed our entire conversation and she told me to lighten up, but I honestly can't help it.
I also cringe when people (my sister, for one) don't know how to spell. I'm like, "Dude, don't you make better grades than ME?" She spells the word "maybe" as "maby" or "calendar" as "calender" and she's a blasted journalism major for crying out loud!
berkeley - I hear ya! When I'm reading something and I notice a really bad grammatical or spelling mistake, it takes away from the whole thing.
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