Grammar Rant

The Brits hate this idea of splitting an infinitive. Why, who knows?

They also don't like things like "Get off of my case". The "off of" seems to offend them for some reason.

But the very best(can I say that?)programs about language were "Yes, Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister". They have such really joyful play with words and syntax that it is a pleasure to see them repeatedly.

Today's Dinosaur Comic is right on the money!

Jim Downey

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Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.

I find the usage “at this point in time” quite common and annoying, and has been mentioned previously, “very unique” is incorrect (use "truly unique" instead).

I don’t have a problem with alright though, but then I thought alot was a word too.

I'll stand by William Safire's damnation of "more importantly" preferring "more important". "Hopefully" can go there too.

And it's fingernails on blackboards for "with she and I", exceeded only by the CNBC anchor who told us Friday that "Dan and I's version was ..."

My faux erudition prize goes to the Sunday sermon sign of a small church by U of M in Ann Arbor: "Whom is Jesus?"

I love precision in language, and I'm merciless on my own usage; but I've gradually managed to relax about other people's bad spelling, grammar and style. The biggest help to me in this process was a little while spent studying Middle English. Language just changes, and not according to the designs of ivory-tower Esperantists. "Aks" for ask and even, much as I loathe it, "nookyoolur" are well established in some English dialects, as much as broadcast English may tempt us to believe that standardization is greater than reality can support.

By the way, abuse of "literally"? I think journalism schools must now have a required class to teach how to misapply that poor adverb.

Okay, more than one. Principal and principle, and let's not forget that those guys on the horses are called the Cavalry not calvary!

Where are you AT? AT? I heard my son use this once and realized that it was the beginning of the end of sweet boy I knew. It was my first "ride-along" with my son after he'd been sworn in as a police officer and I realized that I'd lost him to the "blue". He was transforming into da'man!

"acrost" instead of "across"

"realator" instead of "realtor"

"ect." rather than "etc." as an abbreviation for et cetera

Few writers seem to know the difference between "i.e." (that is) and "e.g." (for example) but use them anyway - incorrectly.

There are too many examples of bad grammar and misunderstood / misheard / misused words. IM, chat, and cell phone text messaging shortcuts are making correct spelling and complete sentences a thing of the past. I agree with the comment above that no one reads these days, and TV and the internet are poor teachers of proper usage and spelling.

With internalizing my annoyance at all the morons around, it's no wonder I need blood pressure medication...

How about the verbal crime spree in which the word "literally" is used as a weapon?

As in,"I was literally beside myself." Or "I was literally scared to death." Or "I literally exploded with anger."

[And how about people who write incomplete sentences?]

What's wrong with the perfectly good word impotence? Why put a 'y' on it?

Also, people who say that the Queen was 'coronated'. She wasn't coronated at her coronation, she was crowned.

People (usually American reporters) who turn nouns into verbs and vice versa. Really, we've got to de-encouragise this sort of thing :-)

While I lose tooth enamel at nearly all these examples, the one that really chaps me is one I did not see:
using 'myself' instead of ME.
Something drummed into us early seems to have had the effect of making us more falsely self-effaced than humans are in any natural setting.
I even hear it now in everyday speech substituted for 'I'

I try to remember the rule we learned in 5th grade english: Leave out the 'other' part and see what the sentence sounds like:
'Arly and myself went to the park.'
Myself went to the park.
THAT should be I, right?
'I thought that was addressed to myself.'
ME, people... dammit.. ME

gmw

"Your total comes to ..."

It's either something like "Your purchase comes to" or "Your total IS."

I hate cop-jargon. "High rate of speed" is always annoything, and using circumlocations such as "marijuana cigarette" when you could just say "joint" is a bugger too.

There was a fun character in the movie "The Last Action Hero," I think played by Anthony Quinn, who emitted a constant stream of stupid stuff, much to the annoyance of his hired assassin. Quinn's character said something like "Why are you doing a 360 on me?" and the assassin said "It's a 180, you idiot. If it was a 360, you'd be back exactly where you started." Then he killed him.

I occasionally hear lines in songs that are wrong, and they bug me forever. Michael Jackson in "I'll Be There" says "Just look over your shoulders, honey!" -- which would be an anatomical trick possible only after some axe-work.

...

"I could care less," much as I hate it too, is sort of correct, actually. You DO mean "I couldn't care less," but you're saying it by reversing the original correct version and delivering it in a sarcastic tone. Like if you got kicked in the knee and you said "Well, THAT felt good."

I've seen a few of my biggest pet peeves already listed, including "axe" instead of "ask", "expresso" instead of "espresso" (I was a barista for a while - I HATED that one), the "their/they're/there" mix-ups, and "lose/loose". I've got a few things that irritate me even more.

I can't stand listening to people end sentences with prepositions. That includes ending clauses of sentences with prepositions. I cringe when I hear it. I cringe even more when I SEE it. I can understand something slipping when they're speaking (we hear bad grammar so often, it's easy to let something slip out), but when they're taking the time to WRITE something, they ought to write it correctly. I'd write a common example, but I can't think of one right now.

A pronunciation issue I've recently discovered since moving to the Midwest has also been driving me insane. They pronounce the vowel sounds of words like "roof" and "root" the same way intelligent people pronounce the vowel in the word "put". Instead of "root beer", it sounds like "rut beer". I actually had no idea what one woman was saying.

Also in this strange Midwestern land, people say "y'all" (or "ya'll"), explaining that it's a contraction of "you all". I can barely restrain myself from telling them that there is no contraction for those two words. More to the point, the word "you" can be either singular or plural, so there's no need to put "all" after it when addressing a group of people.

Finallly... my greatest pet peeve: "these ones" and "those ones". AAAAAARRRRGGGH!!! Can't people just say "these" and "those"? I can't stand it. It's horrible, I tell you.

I don't claim that my grammar is perfect, but there are just some mistakes that can't be forgiven.

This one is courtesy of my wife and her family....and maybe her region of Pennsylvania. They add "then" to any inquiry. "Do you want to pick up our laundry then?" "Have you picked of the twigs in the lawn then?" Then then then. It's amusing, but annoying.

about you in this thread if you don't know the difference between your and you're, and they're and their.

Here are a few more:

"What are you going to do with you book after you read it?"

"I past you house on the way to my friends house, but it was passed ten so we didn't stop."

"My dog died yesterday. He got runned over by a car."

If anyone is keeping score, add my vote for 'loose and lose' as the most annoying grammar error of all.

Okay, the mangling of expressions is probably the worst in the world. I always hear, "I don't want to be a third wheel." It's FIFTH wheel, i.e., a useless addition, not third wheel because you're all wheels and there's three of you. Three wheels is a trike, a very stable and perfectly acceptable means of conveyance. There's no five-wheeled cars because the fifth wheel would be useless and a pain in the ass. The number of people is irrelevant. And of course, the classic "let's say an acronym, then the world the last letter stands for!" game. ATM Machine (ATM Machine Machine), PIN Number (Personal Identification Number Number), etc.

Why do people say "to orientate" when there has long been the perfectly good "to orient"?

Also, "pressurizing" instead of "pressuring".

But the top is the elitist grammar czars(or is it tsars?)who ain't got no learnin' and think that "ain't" ain't a proper word. It is one of the most expressive words in English.

I'm right, aren't I? What the hell is this "aren't"? It makes no sense.

Coming from Tennessee, as I do, the list of grammatical pet peeves is virtually endless.

For example, the habit of adding an "r" in between words containing the letters "as": Warshington, Warshing Machine...

But the one that gets me most, is the one most closely related to my educational background, nuclear engineering.

I cringe whenever I hear nuclear pronounced as "nu-cu-ler", it is actually pronounced "new-clear"

But that is just me.

There is one that really bothers me, but it excapes me at the moment!

"At this point in time"

its "voila" as in "presto", not Wah Lah. What in the world do people think "Wha Lah" even means?

"Physical year"? Wow, I hadn't heard that one.

"Supposedly" becomes "supposeovly" when spoken by my son, but I always correct him. I hope he gets it by the time be goes to college.

Double Negatives! (This means you, Mom!) This is more common in spoken than written language.

What about "since" and "because"? I eventually learned, in law school, that "since" should only refer to time, as in "I have not had a beer since yesterday." It is not interchangeable with "because", as in "Since I drank so much beer last night, I am hungover today."

And, although not grammar-related, I bristle at "Mmm-Hmm" instead of "you're welcome" or "no problem".

I'm sweating as I write this comment. I'm afraid I'll commit a grammar crime and become an example on this thread.

Using "whenever" for "when:" "Whenever I went to the store yesterday..." Seems to be primarily a Texan usage. Drives me nuts.

I also agree with whoever mentioned "I could care less." A Mexican friend of mine, who spoke excellent English, always said that "I couldn't care less" was his favorite expression in English. Direct, concise and pretty much impossible to say in Spanish (the closest you can come is "it couldn't matter less to me" and it's just not an expression you hear; in fact it sounds even more awkward in Spanish). I hate to see a great phrase mangled to the point that, as noted, it actually says the opposite of what the speaker means.

Don't know if this grammar, but the misuse of "unique." Something is either one of a kind, and hence unique, or it's not. I cringe when (or whenever) someone says "very unique" or "more unique."

You guys are gonna make me afeared of posting any more!

As G'Kar said: "Oh, go away! Oppress someone else!"

Jim Downey

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Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.

Has anyone else noticed that a good percentage of the population can no longer pronounce "st" as in "strong," "street," "strange?" Now it's "shtrong," "shtreet," "shtrange." Everyone from my best friend to news reporters does this constantly and it makes me want to claw at my own flesh. Why is this happening?
And don't even get me started on the misplaced modifier and/or dangling particple, as in, "Looking out the window, the house was in clear view." No, you idiot, "Looking out the window, I could clearly see the house." The house is not loooking out the window!!! This is pervasive, both in print and on the air, and it's not unusual to find it in, for instance, The New York Times.
And for good measure, let's throw in "and so on and so forth." Aaaarrrrrgghhh!
One more: it's not "on the same token," dummkopf, it's "BY the same token." Sheesh!!

Loose instead of lose always makes my eye start twitching, as does "expresso".

No sense loosing your mind over what is surely a mute point.

Two of my top pet peeves in one!

Sentence fragments aside, it seems like most of these spelling and grammar issues arise because no one freaking reads anything anymore. Along come the innernets and all the troglodytes want to participate, but they have only been listening to English on TV all these years, never reading it, and they have only the vaguest sense of how to spell anything. English isn't phonetic, people.

Although it's archaic, the plural of "millennium" is "millennia" NOT millenniums (yes, New York Times, that applies to you, too).

The first big peeve is hearing: the data shows. Data is plural (datum, singular). Correct grammar is: the data show.

Secondly are the attempts to pluralize mother in law, attorney general, etc. Mother in laws, attorney generals, drive me up the wall. Mothers in law, attorneys general, etc. are correct. I still remember screaming at my TV when I watched Don Rumsfeld constantly mention possible "court martials" (vs. courts martial) for Abu Ghraib participants.

No sense loosing your mind over what is surely a mute point.

Lots of people say "orientated" as in "I was orientated yesterday by the manager."

It's not really a grammar issue, but every time a newscaster, DJ or radio announcer uses the phrase "as well" either at the end of sentence or to string together two ideas, I get crazy. Go ahead, count them sometime.

Finally, about half of the people here can't correctly pronounce the name of my favorite fast food place: Chipotle. Most switch the "t" and the "l" and can't stop even when it's pointed out to them. I had an argument with an intern and despite spelling it out on a large sheet of paper, he insisted he was saying it correctly. "Right, I said Chipolte!" Gaaaaa!

Any twelve people who can't get themselves out of jury duty are not my peers.
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Claybow
www.myers-bowman.com

RickU I agree with you about loose instead of lose. I see it all the freaking time on message boards. I just want to scream.

Anybody remember the Conan O'Brien episode with Jennifer Garner and she nailed with (and I'm not directly quoting) "Snuck is not word. You went to Harvard, Conan, you should know that"?

One I hear far too often is an incorrect mix of two alternative ways of indicating that some value is within a range. Instead of saying "there are eleven to fifteen" or "there are between eleven and fifteen", they will say "there are between eleven to fifteen".

*cringing*