BellaOnline Forums Career Nonfiction Writing Grammatical Pet Peeves?

This week's article is on semicolons. Semicolons are rumored to be going out of style because so few people use them. We need to declare them an endangered punctuation!

What is your favorite grammatical or spelling pet peeve? My personal one is confusing lose and loose.

Lose: I can't find my keys. I always lose them!
Loose: My ring is loose. If I'm not careful, I'll lose it.

I have a few pet peeves when it comes to grammatical errors, too. I am with you on semi-colons also. We should call them the "endangered punctuation" like you said! Things I hate to see are: their-they're, your-you're, where-wear, and people that misuse words like: he don't, she don't, I axed.

I read that Cambridge, one of the pocket size dictionary people, said they may just start adding words that people use, showing them to be correct, too. No way!! They've got to be kidding!

Trish

One thing I dislike is when collective nouns are interpreted as plural nouns (instead of singular nouns).

I know that collective nouns can be counted as either singular or plural in most cases, but it still pains me to see/hear sentences like "My family are feuding" and "The group haven't arrived yet."

In my book, it's either "The committee has voted" or "The members of the committee have voted" -- never "The committee have voted." That just sounds so wrong to me...

The its / it's thing always stands out to me - it seems like even newspaper reporters get it wrong sometimes.

It's is only a contraction for "it is" - nothing else

The NY Times just wrote about semicolons!

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This is more of a change in popular vocabulary, but I don't like it when nouns are turned into verbs. For instance, "She Googled her new boyfriend's name" drives me up the wall. I USE Google. Google is a thing, not an action!

It especially drives me up the wall when a verb form of the noun already exists but people don't use it. This seems to be common on reality shows. On Clean House they always say something like, "I will gift you a new sofa if you throw away your magazine collection." Why would you say "gift" if the word "give" is already out there?

My personal peeve is the use of apostrophes in place of a plural, such as "tree's" instead of "trees." And the constant use of "I" where it clearly should be "me." My boss is famous for this: "He'll meet with John and I after lunch." Even worse, when I is used as a possessive! "Michael and I's house..." UGH!

Side note on the collective noun issue, that strikes me as more common in British usage. Have you encountered it that way here, too?

What always gets me is when people don't add the "ed" on the end of a word that should have it.

I can't stand to see "toss" salad (tossED salad).

I actually saw a brand name advertise its "ice" tea the other day instead of ICED tea. Drives me insane!

I think it may have happened when teachers here (UK) went overboard on the teaching of the apostrophe - kids 'overdelivered' to be on the safe side, sticking huge tadpole shapes on the end of every word and the habit stuck with them. (I know, because I'm a teacher and - My! - have I seen some artistic apostrophes. (LOL, note - no apostrophe there!)

A LOT. It's two words people! "Alot" isn't a real word, yet I see it everywhere. >_<

There is a huge difference between THAN and THEN. I see misuse of this everywhere.

"I am taller then he is." Just typing that drove me nuts!!!

This is mine as well. Also to and too. Usually people get two right.

This is a great thread; abuse of the written word really pains me! I identify with all the peeves listed here and have one to add. I have noticed a growing tendency by Brits to use 'gotten' instead of the gramatically correct 'got', as in 'I've gotten some bad news' rather than 'I've got some bad news'. This was once a legitimate part of British English which has survived in American English but now seems to be crossing the Atlantic back again. I blame the ubiquitousness of American films and TV, together with the Internet, which is making these Americanisms creep in without people even noticing.

I've just been reminded of another pet peeve: the misuse of 'literally', as in 'I literally died when I heard that' (no, you certainly didn't!). It's become a sort of emphatic filler which I find really grating.

Manatee, I never thought about the use of "literally" until someone did an essay on the misuse of it (I think it was on the Grammar Girl podcast). I have to admit that I was guilty of misusing it in the past. Now it bothers me when I hear it.

How about hearing someone saying, "I am going 'somewhere'. Do you want to go WITH?" Can't they say "...with ME or US?" They are even saying it a LOT on television.

Trish

Here's another one (oh dear, I seem to be on a roll): 'I was sat at my desk' instead of 'I was sitting'. I always have a mental image of a giant picking the speaker up and plonking him down in front of his desk!

I think this may be a UK phenomenon - have any non-UK posters noticed this?

Here are a few more:

"Not for nothing." What does this mean???

"I'm just saying." What? What are you just saying?

Referring to our school's new program for autistic children- people call it the "autistic program." The program is not actually autistic...

Ohhh that one drives me INSANE! I see it used all the time on daytime t.v., I want to reach through and actually DO what "literally" happened to them. I remember someone saying "I was so [censored] off, literally!" Well then, I hope you had a change of pants, moron.

seen vs. saw

It drives me crazy when I hear someone use seen when it should be saw.

"I seen her walking the dog."

Ugh!

I have one pet peeve that I have heard to much that I am not sure about it anymore. Is the term "went missing" proper? I have heard it so many times, and it still sounds wrong. How can you go missing?

"I was SAT at my desk" -- I'm in the US and I've only heard that sentence structure when watching Brit reality shows. I think it must be a UK-only thing.

Another peeve - "I had saw them walking" or "I had ate dinner" or "I had did it already" (those are like nails on a blackboard to me).

"I had did it already". Hm-hmm-hmm. That is really a common one, too, just like "I seen her walking her dog".

Carol, I think "went missing" is correct, because saying "I got missing" sounds really silly and so does, "I went lost" rather than "got lost". Yes, you have been on a roll! It's fun and I literally had to look up my state to see if it had an "autistic program". (It doesn't, but we DO have lots of programs "for" autistic children. LOL

Trish

Them vs. Those

"Them shirts are the best kind." Should be - "Those shirts are the best kind."

"May" (permission) amd "Can" (ability) are two that are often misused. When I was a child my mother straighted me out on this one. "Can I go to the bathroom?" I'd ask. "I don't know, can you?" she'd reply.

Evanne

Y'all.

I absolutely detest that word. I live in the southeast, so I'm constantly exposed to people who say "Y'all" and "Y'all's." Yes, "Y'all's" is the possessive form. Ick.

Oh, another. Effect and affect. They get mixed up all the time and I think people simply don't know the difference.

Evanne

My main peeves:

lose/loose

you and me/me and you/you and I

their/there/they're

Donna

I was born in NY and lived there until I was 10. Instead of "y'all", I grew up saying "you guys". When I moved to NC, I got a lot of ribbing for saying "you guys", so I slowly integrated "y'all" into my vocabulary. I think my use of both terms is about 50/50 now.

I'll bite.

Why are they peeves to you, Donna?

One hears much more often these days than in years past "Grow your business!" (or sales or income, etc.)

Even though it is apparently an appropriate usage (I can grow my own vegetables, I suppose I can grow my own business), this greatly offends my ear, and as noted, currently this is a popular usage.

The only times something like this bothers me (theres also spelling + the way people talk) is when it is done on purpose. In my province people love to speak and write French badly and these people are proud of it, they think it is real French.