- Commonly confused words: Its and It's. Your and You're. There and Their and They're. GAH! This is actually quite simple to sort out. All you have to do is ask yourself, "What am I trying to say?" Do you want to say "It is," as in "It is not a tree, it is a shrubbery"? Then you should use "It's" not "Its". Do you want to say "You are" as in "You are a complete idiot"? Then you should use "You're". Same with "They're" -- it means "They are". It isn't possessive -- if you want to say that "the smelly socks belong to them," you say "the smelly socks are theirs."
- Would of, Could of, Should of: This is NOT RIGHT. This comes from the contractions "Would've," "could've," and "should've," which are, respectively, shortened versions of "would have," "could have," and "should have." Please, please, please do not write "would of." It makes you look bad.
- Kind of like saying nuculur: The word is NUCLEAR. Noo-clee-ur. Even Noo-clear, if you're going to be sloppy with it. But noo-cu-lur has got to GO. How can we expect to negotiate nuclear arms away from dangerous enemies if we can't even pronounce the word? Eesh.
- Suppose to: There's a "d" missing in there somewhere. Like, at the end of "suppose." The proper was to say/write this is "supposed to."
- Supposably: This is not a word. Nope. What you're going for is "Supposedly."
- Doggy dog world: I am not lying. People say this. The real saying is "dog-eat-dog world." And that's no stranger than thinking this world belongs to Snoop Dogg.
- For all intensive purposes: No, no, NO! When people say this, it makes me want to plunge sharp objects into my ears. The saying is "For all intents and purposes."
- Reoccur, Orientated, Irregardless: Make it easier on yourself and drop out the unnecessary and incorrect syllables that people have added to these words. They should be "Recur," "oriented," and "regardless."
Naturally, I would love it if my writing could always be error-free. Of course, it isn't! These are just the most common mistakes that I'm seeing more and more as we drop grammar rules and proper pronunciation in e-mails and casual conversations. Are there any that drive you particularly nuts? I'd love to hear about them. Because I'm a dork.
25 comments:
Biggest pet peeve is seeing the your/you're or there/their/they're mistakes on church marquee signs. Please pretend that Christians have a decent education.
Here's another in the tradition of "for all intensive purposes": "I'd just assume" have the steak as the fish. No, it's I'd "just as soon"...
A made up word that I like, that hopefully will catch on and make it into a dictionary: gription. Combination of grip and traction. Very handy word, or non-word, for those times when neither grip nor traction are quite what you're looking for.
Prolly instead of probably. I dont' even know where this came from. I dont' know about you, but when I say probably, even sloppily, it doesn't sound like prolly. Also, I have recently become a text messaging fiend, and I am beyond irritated by the way people refuse to spell out words like u and i. My personal least favorite is "n e thing" for anything. It takes longer to type! It is not cool! Also, one of my fellow bartenders this week asked me if "of course" was spelled "acoarse". Can't make that up.
now... i'ma fixin to way into this mix and say with them thar grammar hangups your going to be in quite a fix while in kentucky! bet the fact that i don't capatilize letters PLUS all the misspelled words are a causin you to run you're nails across the table.
enjoyed reading.... for those of us grammaticaly challanged - we still love you.
kj
Ooooh, "prolly" for "probably" is a great one, Dawn. I think I'm going to change the name of my blog to "Prolly the Best Blog You'll Ever Read."
I guess that's an invention of the IMing/text-messaging shorthand? But it isn't really shorthand...like "n e way" or "n e thing," it's not a shorter version of the actual word! GAH!
Oh, SO MANY THOUGHTS that I don't know if I can get them all in.
First of all -- "Moo point" is one of my favorites as well.
And while mentioning Friends, "What if I've met the girl of my dreams and I dumped her becuase she says it 'supposubly'?" Classic.
Pet Peeves - the obsession our culture now has with using quotation remarks around EVERYTHING especially when they aren't needed. My favorite would be in a restaurant where beside the little candy jars, there was a sign that said, CHANGE FOR CANDY "HERE". WHY?!? I've noticed an abundance of this lately and it drives me bonkers!!!
Of course, I come up with things like this that drive me bonkers on a daily basis. This is the only one I can come up with solid examples of at this moment.
Glad I'm not the only dork who fumes over these things. :-D
Thank you! I've been reading your blog for quite some time now and it took a grammar rant to get me to comment. These things drive me insane! One that kills me is when people add 's to make something plural. Also (seen especially often in church bulletins) is adding 's to a family's name to indicate their residence. "Meeting at the Johnson's house." Really? Which one is THE Johnson, I wonder.
My grammar geekiness makes internet dating nigh unto impossible for me as I rule out all guys with bad grammar. Seen particularly often: I'm looking for a woman that takes care of themselves. GAH! I'm looking for a man WHO knows HIS way around a properly written sentence!
Sorry for the rant. Congratulations on the wedding!
Susanna, I think I love you and all who have responded to your post. Sometimes, when I'm toiling away in my classroom, I feel all alone. Now I feel less alone. I say a hearty "Amen" to everything mentioned here. I could go on and on, but I'll just mention a few irritations. Here's one from some idjit I once dated. In a paper for a history class, he referred to the practice of primogeniture as "Prime Megenter." I have no idea why I didn't break up with him then and there.
Here's another mystery. I realize that with the dawn of email and text messaging, it would seem that we were 'freed' from the laws of grammar and punctuation. Here's what I want to know. Is it REALLY that much effort to hit the Shift key? I mean, I have to make an effort NOT to hit it. I never thought that as a high school teacher I would have to say things like, "Remember to capitalize the first letter in sentences and people's names!" Sheesh. I mean, how lazy are we, if we can't make capital letters? Like it's so much effort to extend the lines that much further, or to hit the Shift key.
And okay, one more. "Where's it at?" It's like nails on the proverbial blackboard for me. It's "where is it?" my friends!
I'm with "superfantastic" on the whole apostrophe thing! Amen to that! We got a cheese spreader for our wedding that was cleverly engraved with "The Donald's". Is that like Donald Trump's cheese spreader or "the Donald is"? The Donald is what?
My mother used to recount a story from her classroom where students would ask her if spelling counted on a test. She would reply, "If I say it doesn't, are you going to misspell something on purpose?" Shouldn't we always try to spell everything correctly?
However, my favorite has to be the title of the post. Did you all catch that clever use of "[sic]"? Wow! Susanna is incredible!
I guess you'll just have to decide which of you is The Donald. Sadly, only that person will be entitled to spread cheese. That was highly inconsiderate of your wedding guest, since cheese spreading should be a right, not a privilege.
There are two more grammar things I thought of:
1. The difference between well and good. I wish it would suffice to say that well is an adverb and good is an adjective, but I don't think that really helps people. So, some examples:
Tiger Woods played well. (Well modifies how Tiger played. It describes an active verb.)
That was good cake. (Good describes the cake. Cake is a noun. Adjectives describe nouns!)
You can say, "Tiger is good." (Is is not an active verb. Good is describing Tiger not the verb.) But, you cannot say, "Tiger played good."
2. Why can't people understand that when they talk about themselves and someone else that you always put yourself last in the group and you always use the form of the pronoun that you would use if you were just talking about that one person?
Very wrong:
Me and Susanna went to the mall.
Susanna and myself went to the mall.
I and Susanna went to the mall.
Her and I went to the mall.
Very right:
Susanna and I went to the mall.
She and I went to the mall.
Lastly, if you grammar nuts haven't read Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves, you need to. Very funny, and it will feed your obsession!
OK, that's my rant for today. I'm procrastinating. I should get back to work.
This is maybe my favorite blog/comment trail ever! :-D
Yes, Nolan, I did notice the fabulous use of [sic] in the title and I also gave Susanna mental "props" for that one.
Here's one of my favorite grammar stories -- and it's something that could touch all of your lives, so read carefully. During my first year of teaching, when the principals (not principles) have to come and formally (not formerly) observe your classroom, my principal (the head honcho) came to observe my classroom. On the observation sheet (a legal document that gets submitted to the state and filed for years to come), he wrote "Your very organized." Now, I took this to mean that organization now belongs to me. SOOOO, for all of you anal retentive people out there, everytime you organize, send me $.50. I'd say that's the going rate for such a fabulous thing as organization! :-D
Also, (and this is a real gem) my Spanish teacher in high school (whom we lovingly refered to as Senor Tic-Tac for obvious reasons) used to tell us all of the time that we needed to work on our "Pro-NOUN-ciation". (Note that he was not saying "Pro-nun-ciation". I find that to be maybe the most hysterical word in the English language to mispronounce!
One last gem of a story and I'm done. One of my friends who works as an engineer at a construction company in B'ham had a boss (also an engineer) who would always exclaim, "Come on, guys! It's not rocket SCIENTRY!!" Yes, guys, this is one of the main guys working on the physics of drainage pipes, roads and bridges in Birmingham, AL. Makes ya feel safe, doesn't it?!? :-D
Ah, it's so nice to know I'm not the only one out there who does this. :-D
Oh, I can't stop myself! I have to agree with Nolan that the whole lack of understanding about the use of apostrophes is maddening. But here's another abuse of the English language. How about when someone talks/writes about taking something 'for granite.' Like apparently, if you didn't appreciate something or someone, you took them for a piece or rock . . . or something.
And that brings me to the next point. Today, my friends, I got an email from a guidance counselor at school. She is new there. Apparently, she doesn't believe in using correct punctuation or standard rules of English in her emails to staff. I never know what to expect, so there's always something new to entertain me. Today seven other teachers and I (notice I am putting myself last, it's only polite) received a long paragraph from her which contained not a single period. After each statement, she wrote an ellipsis. No capitalizations, no periods, just ellipsis after ellipsis . . . and I wonder . . .where did this woman go to school . . .and I saw her car in the parking lot today . . . it has an Alabama sticker on it.
For all intensive purposes I would of, could of, should of paid more attention in English class. Irregardless of what classes I took, I must admit it truly is a doggy-dog world.
Crystal and I received a blanket for our wedding embroidered with "The Couchs" and I cannot believe we have not burned it.
Oh yeah, as for myself, it drives me crazy when people incorrectly use reflexive pronouns.
This really happened at my church a few Sundays ago. Our pastor was posing a question on the bulletin for us to contemplate, however the since he did not use quotation marks indicating it was him saying it...it read. (What hinders you from looking like Jesus? Your Pastor.) Guess he should of known better.
There is also one I have heard more than seen written. There was a guy who lived next to us growing up who would always say "I seen it." My mom was a teacher and it would drive her crazy.
Oh, how I miss the joys of proper grammar! I changed the sign in front of the church one day. It read, "Have you spoke to the Lord lately?" I added an "n". Thank you, thank you, thank you for these posts. -jean
Oh goodness! Something today made me think of my absolute LEAST favorite! I hate (loathe, detest)when people say, "I could care less!" Then why are you saying anything. If you COULD care less, then you don't feel very strongly about it and should just stay out of it. It's "I COULDN'T CARE LESS!" It doesn't even make sense the other way!
Oooh, I should have proofed before I posted (especially on this blog). I put a period where I should have put a question mark. Apologies to all!
Adding to Nolan's I/me issues, many people forget that you still use the first person pronoun that rightly attaches, even if the action is happening with another person.
Abby and I went to the mall.
But, Ben brought Abby and me breakfast in bed.
As for using the Shift key, I place the blame squarely at the feet of Microsoft Word. Since it autocorrects so much, I've gotten fairly lazy, admittedly.
Ok, one more I/me issue about which I have a question (notice I didn't dangle my preposition). If someone asks, "Are you the one that .....?" and you want to answer in the affirmative, would the correct response be, "It is I." or "It is me." and why?
Wow. Many responses. Great post. I don't care much about grammar and punctuation. I was a Mass Comm major.
However, there is one misusage that drives me nuts. Are you really "anxious" (experiencing anxiety), or are you actually "eager" (excited)? We use these words interchangably, but they don't mean the same thing. Here is a positive example from the life of Christina and Brian.
"Last week, Christina and I were eager to go on vacation. However, we were a bit anxious about leaving the children for seven days."
The truth is that if we used those words correctly, meaningful conversation might actually occur.
I am eager to hear your thoughts.
"Stepping foot into..." instead of "setting foot." Also, people who say "mischieVIous" instead of "mischievous" also drive me crazy as a picky English major. This thread is great!
You guys are dorks. Is that grammatically correct? Did I mispell grammatically? Oh, no. Did I mispell mispell? Thanks smart people, now I am questioning everything.
How about saying "chafferon" when you mean chaperon? I hear that alot when we are preparing for youth trips.
Supposably is actually a real word
How about the incorrect pronunciation of "short lived". That one really gets me. It's supposed to be pronounced with a long "i" vowel sound, but most say it with a short "i" vowel sound. You don't have a short live. You have a short life. And, another bit about the "moot point" business. I hear it frequently used as "mute point" instead. That nearly drives me insane! Thanks for the fun and interesting discussion.
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