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16 Responses to "Grammatical Peeves"

1. | Reply Gabe
   Posted 05 Jul 2003 at 10:56am #
   

   My biggest pet peeves in grammar, you already mentioned; there, their, and they're. I cannot stand it when people don't know the difference.

   Another peeve, however:

   "You'll lose your site!" and "Good nite."

2. | Reply Erik J. Barzeski
   Posted 05 Jul 2003 at 11:04am #
   

   "You'll lose your site" is perfectly valid, of course, unless you're referring to a person's eyesight. 🙂

   Abbreviations bug me. "Donut" may be popular, but I still like calling them doughnuts." But otherwise, "lite" and other products (cleaning, "healthy" foods, etc.) have contributed to a level of stupidity heretofor unknown. 😀

3. | Reply eli sarver
   Posted 05 Jul 2003 at 12:42pm #
   

   ensure, insure and assure

   Using 'basically' before launching in to a complex

   explanation.

   ANY AOL neologism like 'u' (you) 'r' (are) 'u r' (you are) 'ur' (your) 'urs' (yours)

4. | Reply Folkstone
   Posted 05 Jul 2003 at 12:54pm #
   

   Saying "loose" when you mean "lose".

5. | Reply Eric
   Posted 05 Jul 2003 at 2:26pm #
   

   The preposition rule is nonsensical for English. Any true student of English grammar, including prescriptivists, will agree that it should never have been written in the first place. It has never been appropriate for English, nor has it been used in English speech or writing except by people unfortunately trying to contrive their language to fit the rule they believe is true. See the alt.usage.english FAQ for details.

6. | Reply Gabe
   Posted 05 Jul 2003 at 2:58pm #
   

   "What R U talking about? ROTFLMAO!"

   I can't think of anything more annoying than people who don't have those extra 1.2 nanoseconds to type the entire word in the message they are trying to convey. I remember when people started doing that in the early days of AOL and it would always annoy the hell out of me.

   I despise speaking (or typing) in acronyms.

7. | Reply Jon Gales
   Posted 05 Jul 2003 at 3:53pm #
   

   I find acronyms handy... but only ones that shorten a phrase. NAPP instead of National Association of Photoshop Professionals for example. NASA instead of National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

   I am guilty of using "lol", but that is no different IMHO (there I go again) than using NASA instead of National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I don't use silly "one word" ones like "ur". Those are just annoying.

   Hardcore grammar purists make me laugh... Relax a little. Have some fun in life.

8. | Reply Justin Williams
   Posted 05 Jul 2003 at 6:29pm #
   

   The misuse of there, their, they're. What a travesty.

9. | Reply Erik J. Barzeski
   Posted 05 Jul 2003 at 10:15pm #
   

   I forgot to mention another one. I saw a shirt the other day that said "Your vote will effect your tuition." I think it meant to say "affect." Effect/Affect get flipped a lot too.

10. | Reply Patrick Wynne
    Posted 06 Jul 2003 at 12:13am #
    

    Using "then" instead of "than" for comparisons. I'm seeing this one more and more lately and it drives me up the freakin' wall!

    Sad to say, but I've pretty much given up on people ever getting their/they're/there or your/you're correct. They still bug me, though.

11. | Reply Austin Brower
    Posted 06 Jul 2003 at 12:14pm #
    

    The use of "till" instead of "'til" as an abbreviation for "until."

12. | Reply steve
    Posted 06 Jul 2003 at 6:55pm #
    

    How can I be both the 12th to comment and the first to mention the miserable state of "me vs. I?"

    For a couple others see

    http://www.thespeichers.com/musings/archives/cat_communication.html

    Cheers,

    Steve

13. | Reply Olivier
    Posted 07 Jul 2003 at 4:44am #
    

    Excuse me, but I don't understand the problem with "Prepositions are bad things to end sentences with." Is it incorrect? I'm asking because I use this construction quite often (maybe because of all these German lessons I had to take in school), although I sometimes find it strange. How would you write it? I'd say "It is a bad thing to end sentences with prepositions," but it feels a lot less elegant in my opinion (unless the former is indeed incorrect, of course.)

    Olivier (whose pet peeve is about people calling him Oliver when they flame him on a mailing list.)

14. | Reply Erik J. Barzeski
    Posted 07 Jul 2003 at 7:46am #
    

    You'd write it as "prepositions are bad things with which to end sentences."

15. | Reply Ryan
    Posted 07 Jul 2003 at 1:31pm #
    

    Strangely enough, the difference between "its" and "it's" hasn't been mentioned yet. I'm just doing my part to further grammatical harmony. 😉

16. | Reply Erik J. Barzeski
    Posted 07 Jul 2003 at 7:20pm #
    

    It's already been mentioned, Ryan. It was in my intitial entry. 😀