Wednesday, August 5, 2009

A Li'l Grammar Lesson

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Now, dear friends, is the portion of the program where we discuss our grammar pet peeves. Won't you play along?

Here are mine in no particular order:

  • "Bob and I's anniversary" GAH! If you never learn anything from reading this blog except one single nugget of information, let this be it: "I" should never be made to stand next to an apostrophe "s". They do not get along and you will only have trouble on your hands if you make this mistake. Besides, the apostrophe "s" is meant to show possession and the possessive form of I is a little word known as MY! See? No need to make two hot heads stand next to each other in this case. How about "Bob's and my anniversary"? Now isn't that better?

  • "The beaver saw it's shadow." This is a common mistake. In fact, I saw this very thing in the title of a majorly popular mommy blog post. "It's" can only mean one thing: IT IS. That's it. The apostrophe in this word can NEVER be possessive.

  • "Alot". Now, think about this one. Do you ever write "abunch"? No, because they should be two words, and we do not smash two words together. It just isn't mannerly. It violates the personal space of both words. It should be "a lot". That way you can squeeze an extra word in there, like "a whole lot".
What are your grammar pet peeves?

25 comments:

JenT said...

I thing the "it's" and "its" gets to me, too. Or how about the "there", "their", and "they're"? Oohh...chills.

Jamie said...

My pet peeve is when people use a simple past tense verb with a helping verb. Example: She had went running. He had ate already.
Argh.

Shari said...

Giggling here! There, their, they're...it drives me nuts when people mess 'em up. Or any of the other words that are spelled different but sound the same. Or run-on sentences! Urgh!

Digella said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Digella said...

Oh my! I have so many. Where to begin?

Unorganised when it should be disorganised. (as clarification I am in Australia therefore these words are have 's' not 'z')

Rang and rung.... how about just "I phoned John" or "I called John"

"I am going to go to the shop" when it should just be "I am going to the shop"

aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrr I am going NUTS now!!! ;)

Digella said...

Oh!

Bought and brought.

I brought this from the shop.

I bought this into work today.

I hate those too!!!!

Luigi from Digital Room said...

Haha. I enjoyed this post. Thank you for making this. It reminds me to be careful. But you know, I think that sometimes it's because of our blind spots. Not really an excuse right? Let's just all be careful.

Anonymous said...

Improper use of apostrophes about drives me nuts! "Welcome the Jackson's" was posted on our church's big screen a few weeks ago. Welcome their what??

And where I live, people borrow things to you. Un, no, that should be lend. AND they don't go "to my mom's house" they say by. As in, "Then we'll go by my mom's. It took me a while to catch on that when they say 'by' that they're actually going to stop in for a visit!

Weird.

Unknown said...

When people mix up "your" and "you're". That drives me crazy.

And when people use adjectives instead of adverbs. "She sang good" instead of "she sang well" Or "That's real nice" instead of "That's really nice"

And my dad says "that's all the farther you can go" instead of "that's as far as you can go." It's a Pennsylvania Dutch thing I think.

Brenda said...

There Their They're bothers me. I understand spell check isn't going to helpy ou out on that one but I'm surprised by how many people don't know it.

But then I had really forgotten that it's rule so who am I to judge?

JessicaC said...

"I'm going to the store. Wanna come with?"

"No thanks. I've already been."

Linz said...

I always screw up that first grammar mistake! I'll try very hard not to say that this Wednesday! ;) The only grammar pet peeve I can think of right now is how our news reporters for our station's website don't seem to have any earthly idea about the basics of grammar or anything remotely related. In general it just drives me crazy when someone is writing professionally for something and their work looks lazy. I always have one or two people check my papers, b/c I know(!) I'm not very good at seeing my own mistakes.

Also, I'm now obsessing over my grammar in this comment which I'm sure is wrong! ! Slightly OCD... ;)

Anonymous said...

It drives me crazy to see someone using "an" before a word beginning with a consonant or "a" before a word beginning with a vowel.

And, as a Southerner, I cringe when I see someone spelling y'all as "ya'll." It's short for "you all" NOT "ya all" and everybody knows you put the apostrophe in place of the missing letter(s). Everybody does know that...right?

Mrs. Pear said...

This is so petty, but I hate it when someone is explaining something to me and they keep saying "you know."

No, I do not know, that is why you are explaining it to me!

But I think that is more a case of poor word choice than bad grammar....

Monique in TX said...

It drives me nuts to see or hear
--lie and lay misused
--"I" used as a direct object, as in "Mary talked to Bob and I" Augh!
--infer and imply misused
--ampersands drawn backwards
--you're and your mixed up

Christi said...

Guilty of alot here. Mea culpa.

It is the spelling mistakes that can bug me. We have one lady in our homeschool group that asked for a "breading box for cockatiels." While I am sure she didn't want to batter and fry up her pets, the visual was rather jarring. (By the way - she meant breeding box).

The Mommy Chef said...

I can't stand it when someone says "supposably" instead of "supposedly!" There are so many others(I was the editor of a school paper) and so little time!

Jennifer said...

This one is not necessarily written, but it is said over and over where we live: "I'm going to borrow her that" instead of "I'm going to lend her that." Oh, that one gets me every time!

Or how about "are we's going to...". We's? Are you kidding me? Do people know how ignorant they sound when they speak/write like that? My guess is: no, they don't.

Jennifer D

Mark Pennington said...

If you are grammatically challenged, or let’s face it, a grammatical snob who will catch the grammatical error in the title of this blog, you owe it to yourself to check out these grammatical pet peeves and tips at Top 40 Grammar Pet Peeves

Jenn said...

i makes lot's of misteaks on me and i's blog all tha thyme. please donot judge there writers'
in-abillity's...

and i also do declare myself an ellipsis abuser.

Libby said...

Drives me crazy when people sign their family name with an apostrophe. For example, Merry Christmas from The Traylor's. It's PLURAL not possessive!

Headmistress, zookeeper said...

Oh, Libby, I dunno- maybe they mean, "Merry Christmas from the Traylor's house."

Though why the house would be wishing a Merry Christmas, I do not know.

Harmony said...

I am an ellipses abuser, too... ;-)

I can't stand redundancies in language. Example: "I woke up at 3am in the morning." So far as I'm aware, 3am is always in the morning. Or: "I don't know whether or not I'm going to the party or not." Can we leave out one "or not" please?

Similar to the family name issue, I saw this the other day: "For all the Mom's out there..." Umm, for all the Mom's what?

Honey said...

Living in east Tennessee I could (should) write a book on this topic! But my neighbors might not "take too kindly to it!" I am with Jamie! "Had went" and other such nonsense. I have been known to correct people without the comment passing through the part of my brain (hippocampus?) that says "better not say that". I just can't help it. No one ever "had went", they had gone! They never "had saw", they had seen! Were they sleeping through grammar?

Chick Hatchers said...

I know this is months old, but I couldn't resist a whole 'nother pet peeve. Actually that's it. It's either a whole other or another whole, but it's not ever a whole 'nother!

mychildsview.blogspot.com
chickhatching.blogspot.com/

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