Most Hated Grammatical/Spelling Errors
Here's a thread for the grammar Nazis to vent. Do you see any spelling or grammatical errors that really get up your nose? Here are some of my pet hates:
'Your dumb'
'Definately'
'I should of'
I have many more, but I'll leave them for the rest of you guys.
'Your dumb'
'Definately'
'I should of'
I have many more, but I'll leave them for the rest of you guys.
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- Your and You're
- There, Their, and of course, They're
These are currently the only three I can think of at the moment, but I know there are more.
Also, does pronouncing things count. I've said it before and I will say it again. The word is pronounced straw-berry. Note the 'E'. It's there for a reason. Why can no one pronounce it where I live?
Yeah, pronunciations count. I always hate it when people pronounce 'H' as 'haych' instead of 'aych'. But I'm pretty sure both are acceptable.
Extra Note: Also, another of my most hated grammatical errors is when people write 'to' when it should be 'too'. Is it really so hard to write/type an extra 'o'?
Good. Then I can go ahead and mention another pronunciation that I know I've mentioned before. Library. Spelt with an 'r' between the 'b' and 'a'. Yet nobody seems to pronounce it. WHY???!!!
I'm also amazed how often rogue gets mispelled as 'rouge' - what's so difficult about this word that half the internet can't spell it correctly?
One of the hardest things in my life is going on Facebook and seeing my cousin's posts.
For example, check this out: going tp hearshy park taday.
If I could only tell her what I thought of that....
Let's see... zero capitalization, you spelled "to" wrong, (is that possible?) you spelled Hershey Park wrong, and I have no idea how you spelled today wrong. That's nothing to smile about, Sarah.
(Don't forget, she's 13.)
"I'm a genious" *snigger*
For those of you who are unsure about some of these things, here's some help with the things that have been brought up so far (and one or two more things):
Brought/Bought - "bRought" pertains to the word "bRing" whereas "bought" pertains to the word "buy". So if you go to the shop and buy something, you have "bought" that item because there is no R in "buy", but if you bring something to work/school with you, you have "brought" that item because there IS and R in "bring".
There/Their/They're - "Their" is a possessive pronoun. This means that it always refers to a PERSON and to their POSSESSIONS (not necessarily physical possessions, maybe just qualities which they possess). For example. "that's their picture", or "their face looks funny".
"There" is an adverb. It can be remembered in some cases because it is similar to the word "here", but just with a T at the beginning. For example, "that's neither Here nor tHere" or "I'm going over tHere/Come over Here".
It can also be used as a pronoun in cases such as "there's a snake in my boot" or "there is a problem with my lower intestines".
"They're" is a shortened version of "they are". The apostrophe signifies that letters have been missed out (the letter A, in this case). If you can change the sentence to include "they are", then use "they're". For example, you can't say "they are is a snake in my boot", but you CAN say, "they are not listening to me".
Definitely/Definately - You can remember that "definitely" is the correct spelling because it's just the word "finite" (as in "infinite") with "de" in front of it and "ly" at the end.
Were/Was - Sometimes it's difficult to know whether to say, for example, "if I was you" or "if I were you". The trick is to remember that "were" is used in instances where the thing you're referring to hasn't happened. Usually, if you're using the word "if", then you're looking for "were" and not "was". The word "was" is used when something has already happened. For example, "that was awesome" rather than "that were awesome".
Your/You're - As with above, the apostrophe in "You're" signals that there is a missing letter. Again, the letter is A. If you can replace the word with "you are", you should use "you're". The word "your" is a pronoun. It is usually used to referred to somebody's possessions, for example, "is this your knife? It appears to have thrust itself into my lower intestine".
Should of/should have - With phrases like "shoulda", coulda" and "woulda", the word "have" is used rather than "of". This example will show you the logic behind that: "I have been to the doctor", "I should have gone to the doctor" Vs. "I of been to the doctor", "I should of gone to the doctor". The second two examples don't make sense.
Like when people say that there are less people. It hurt just to type that example.
If there was fewer disregard for the proper use of grammar there'd be less mistakes like that.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO
You are now in negative gold star territory.
In fact, you owe me fifty bazillion gold stars for that statement.
...Also, fix'd.
Well your worser then me at grammar any-ways so I don't care.
Does that make the police 'Crime Nazis'? or 'Murder Nazis?'.
Anyway, my most hated grammatical and spelling error is when they misuse apostrophes. Everyone who do that, I always envision as 10-year-olds.
Well no, because crime and murder are actually harmful whereas the misuse of grammar isn't and is either the result of an innocent lack of knowledge or honest mistake (like "everyone who do that"
Misuse of grammar isn't harmful? MISUSE OF GRAMMAR ISN'T HARMFUL?!
I hate you.
Oh, wait, typing on all caps is a misuse of grammar, isn't it?
...
Shut up.
As in: "I'm afraid of loosing my job." Well, maybe you should tie it up? Or, "I need to loose weight." Yes! Set it free!
A few other things to remember:
Remember to never split an infinitive.
Remove all exclamation points!!!
Avoid cliches like the plague.
Also, is it still considered bad grammar to end a sentence with a preposition, or is that something up with which people will not put?
I agree with Churchill in this case.
As in, "This topic has so many complains." I'm shocked at how often I see this one, it occurs way too much to be an innocent typo where someone missed hitting the T key.
"Complain" is a verb. A VERB. Not a noun. :mad:
I also hate it every time someone mixes up "accept" and "except." No acceptions [sic].
P.S im still going to use color it was how i was tought:)
I've explained some of it before, but since this thread is dedicated to this...
French has "hard" and "soft" vowels. The consonant before said vowel is pronounced accordingly. For instance, "ca" is pronounced "ka", but "ce" is pronounce "se". Because A is hard and E is soft.
Similarly, before an A, G is hard (as in "golf") but before an E, it's soft (as in the S in "treasure")
If you want it to be hard anyways, you insert a U between the G and the E. That's what happens in "rogue" or "dialogue", or "epilogue" and so on.
You can't make the G soft before an A, so if you want the soft sound, you use J instead (which is always soft).
With C, by the way, it's the opposite. You can make it soft before an A by adding a cédille: "ça" is pronounced "sa".
But you can't make it hard before an E. So you'll use "qu" instead.
I realise it's pretty complicated when you don't speak the language, but it's actually rather straightforward. There are many rules but they're much more consistent than English.
It's a thief, not a "stealer." I hate it when people say that.
Grammar Nazis - by Quentin Tarantino
Take the name Jacques for example. To my knowledge, it's pronounced pretty much the same as the English "Jack", (i.e. "jak"). How on earth can the French justify using seven whole letters on such a simple single-syllable word? :P
Yes, I love that video! I think that I actually found out about it because of you, or someone on this forum anyway. It was linked to in order to brighten the mood after somebody (who will remain unnamed) became angry at me for grammar nit-picking as a joke.
Anyway, here is some more topic-related linkage.
Haha I guess.
Well, let me try and break it down:
E in the end of a word isn't pronounced as such: it means the consonant before it is pronounced.
It follows that without the final E, consonants aren't pronounced. They're written so you know what the feminine form is, mostly, or sometimes the derivatives. So they're there for grammar purposes if you will. It's pretty useful because if you see a masculine or a feminine form, you know easily what the other is. There are exceptions (belle - beau) but as it usually is in languages, exceptions are common enough that you know them anyways or learn them first.
QU goes together. The only instance of Q not followed by a U is, to my knowledge, "coq" (rooster). In that case, by the way, the Q IS pronounced. I think the word might have used to be longer or something.
And I'm pretty sure the C is a remnant from something.
And really, having both C and QU is no more redundant than having both C and K, when you know QU works as a pair.
But yeah, it's one example that has a lot of silent letters in the end. English is more about silent letters at the beginning (I pronounced the G in gnome and the P in psychology until pretty recently).
By the way, it's actually possible to pronounce Jacques as two syllables. While the e is usually skipped when it's at the end (and sometimes when it's not), it's not incorrect to pronounce it. You usually won't hear "Jah-ka" except for regional accents and insisting on it, though.
(For instance if you call the person and they're not answering, you might call them with two syllables to really insist. You might also call them that when you want to tell them they're annoying you or the joke they've just made was particularly lame. But most of the time, you just won't bother pronouncing it because it's kind of a neutral, unessential sound).
I don't see why us British people still include the U in words like colour and armour but not in words like error (just think of seeing ERROUR! on your computer screen).
I also feel the same about the way we British swap the E and the R round on words like "metre" and "centre". "meter" and "center" make so much more sense.
And another thing, why doesn't British English use Z anywhere? What's wrong with spelling "recognise" as "recognize"? Silly Brits.
OMG YOU MISSED THE QUESTION MARK!! HEATHEN!!
But seriously, most of these things don't matter at all. It's just that once you learn a certain rule and you see other people break it, it makes your subconscious whince because something's off. It's like if you see someone write "Star Trekk" or say "I love Jedis" (geekiest examples ever ftw). It's not necessarily that you care so much as your subconscious notices that something's off and it annoys you slightly. Kind of like with the uncanny valley.
Here in Canada, it's a big mix-and-match. You say "centre" and "colour" but "-ize", for instance.
Seeing as I live in Europe I really ought to learn that kind of stuff. Hm.
That's what I was taught as well. I think the American spelling of words like color and center is more logical, but the British spelling often looks nicer on paper somehow.
Also, I hate the way people spell in text messages. I understand that they're just trying to save room on the small space available, but what I don't understand is what they're talking about.
2 me it lks lk all the vwls hv bn tkn out, wich mns the msg mks no snse.
If someone else had written that instead of me, I would be spending hours trying to decipher it, like I do with almost all text messages I recieve from friends. Whereas I always go over the size limit on the text because I'm using proper English, even though it costs more.
Similar: "from whence" (or a lot less commonly: "from thence").
Another one: "til" instead of "till".
Beat me to it. That's one of my favorites.
>.>
David Mitchell makes a nice rant about this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw
I want an inflatable-hover-fort now :-(
Obligatory Sam & Max quotes:
From "Sam and Max 102: Situation: Comedy"
Sam: You and Myra. Why the hate?
Director: Look, Myra runs her show her way and I run every other show my way. If she doesn't want me on her set, I could care less.
Sam: You mean, you couldn't care less. If you could care less then you care some, which doesn't really...
Director: No, I was right, I could care less, because I care even less about what you're saying right now.
Max: Ooh, burn!
This is definitely the main one, I get really worked up when I see it.
I also hate it when people say things like; "I'm listening to I'm Only Sleeping off of Revolver."