Okay, time for a little levity. No sticky situations, anxious anecdotes or dicey dilemmas from the commercial writing world. Just some good old-fashioned griping – about grammar. Got the idea for this post a few weeks back when I managed to run afoul of a friend’s pet peeve by writing, “I’ll try and do _____.” Ouch.
Well. He wrote back, deservedly taking me to task, explaining in exquisite detail:
“I must say — with all due respect — I HATE when writers and others say ‘try and’ (as you’ve done here) rather than the more accurate and appropriate, ‘try to.’ ‘Try and’ suggests TWO different acts: trying something, and then something else (e.g., ‘Try and be a better person.’ So you’re saying, ‘try’ (whatever) AND ‘be a better person,’ too. Whereas ‘try to be a better person’ says precisely what you’re meaning: try to be better.”
Just getting warmed up, he continued, “Almost as bad as when 99.9% of people say ‘could’ care less, when they really mean, and should be saying ‘couldn’t’ care less.”
Voila! Blog fodder. My pet peeves? Beyond the ubiquitous “you’re/your,” “it’s/its” and “compliment/complement”? Well, I’ll let you guys tell yours, and perhaps delve a little deeper while we’re at, and maybe we’ll teach each other something new in the process.
I’ll leave you with this…
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
To.
To who?
To whom.
What’s one of your grammatical pet peeves (one at a time, please, so we can encourage more contributions from more of you…)?
If you’re an English purist, what are your “grammatical grudges”: those things that have been accepted into the vernacular, but IYHO, should never have been?
What are some obscure/esoteric points of grammar that so many people get consistently wrong, but you know better? 😉
Any fascinating grammatical/linguistic trivia you care to share (word origins, evolution of expressions, etc.)?
My biggest “grammatical grudge” is when people say “nother.” Most times they can just say “other” but for some reason they throw the damn “n” in front of it. Now “nother” is actually in the dictionary! What ever happened to ANother or just plain other? Is that really so hard?
I value precision, particularly in language. I hate lazy word-slinging that distorts literal meanings.
That’s why misuse of “range” (the mathematical term, not ranchland) hurts my eyes and ears. It happens regularly, particularly in print and broadcast news reports such as these: “Complaints range from high taxes to last trash pickups” . . . or “Healthful foods range from vegetables to tofu.”
No they don’t, literally. “Range” doesn’t mean “include,” a perfectly fine word that takes just two more keystrokes. Deployed correctly, range applies to anything with a clear, finite beginning and end:
The alphabet ranges from A to Z. Numbers range from 1 to 10. Presidents range from Washington to Obama. Peter’s readers range from Connecticut to California.
But colors on this site don’t range from tan to blue to green.
Too picky?
And oh yes, at risk of being Bower-slapped as disobedient, deliberate use of “healthful” up there is a couldn’t-resist allusion to another pet peeve: Misusing “healthy” in reference to food or activities, as though they — and rather than those benefiting from them — will live longer and more healthfully.
Done now. Your turn.
You’ve covered my biggest pet peeves when it comes to written mistakes. But I always get twitchy when someone mispronounces a common word, too. For instance: I have a friend who always says “supposebly” instead of “supposedly”. Drives me crazy.
Another one is a regional phrasing I noticed while living in the South: “in the floor” — as in, “Your shoes are lying in the floor.” We Midwesterners understand that nothing can be “in” the floor, unless it’s had a bad transporter malfunction, ala Star Trek, and is instead lying “on” the floor.
I’ll stop now. 😉
My biggest pet peeves (besides your and you’re) are with punctuation. And I must cite two briefly:
When people end a question with a period. As in, “I’m asking you to do something, but no, it’s not optional, I’m really telling you.” “Will you please edit this document. Thanks.”
And my biggest writing pet peeve of all… is the overuse… of ellipses…. AAAAHH!!!I detest it…
I get frustrated with myself when a writer accidentally omits a word. My brain locks in on the omission and I have to read the sentence over again, sometimes repetitively. I suppose it is some form of OCD. In your case, it was “…while we’re at (it), and maybe…” where the word “it” was omitted.
Where you at? Texas, of course. Here everyone is fixin’ to do something. I’ve been here 30 plus years and I have just about given up. Even my grown children ask, “Where you at, Mom?” They know better but love to yank my chain.
I am definitely a grammar cop. I blow the whistle on my dad all the time. He frequently says “we was,” “you was,” and “they was.” And he gives lectures!
“It’s/Its” has become my biggest pet peeve because I see it written incorrectly so often, even in “professional” works. I recently caught the error in a help topic on my computer! IT’S not hard to remember. If you’re replacing “it is,” use the apostrophe. Why is there so much confusion?
An error I’ve accepted is the use of non-possessive pronouns before gerunds, like in the sentence, “We appreciate you attending our daughter’s wedding.” I want to say “your” instead of “you,” but I stop myself. I know it sounds stuffy.
“Irregardless” drives me crazy. Also, the widespread use of the apostrophe for no clear reason! Not possession, not contraction, but just randomly thrown in, as in “The chair’s were set around the table.” Argggggh!
I think it’s important be a grammar cop these days. People love to blame their keyboard for their mistakes – what’s wrong with going back and correcting mistakes?
pet peeve; so many writers use “loose” to mean “lose”. I see it everywhere! ” Don’t loose your head about it!”.
And, for some strange reason there are many people out there who spell “having” as ” haveing” !
Since you asked … 🙂
Using over /under instead of more than / less than is my grammatical pet peeve. Over and under are physical locations; more than / less than numerical quantifiers. A company has not been in business for “over 10 years.” Its been in business for “more than 10 years.” The misuse is so rampant it is almost accepted as appropriate. But I am compelled to silently correct the misapplied “overs” to “more thans.” (It’s the little things …)
I won’t bore you with my long list.
Instead, I’m posting to buck the trend: everyone else so far has a first name that begins with A.
🙂
I wince when someone (myself included) says, “Can I borrow that?” when they/I mean “May I borrow that?”
The word gotten, as the past tense of got, still sounds wrong to me. Even after almost forty years in this country. It’s considered archaic usage in Britain.
However, as dear old Mum used to say, “English is a living language, and life isn’t always pretty.”
Pet Peeve? The overuse of the word “that”. Most sentences are fine without “that”, they do not lose their meaning and the message is clearer. It’s the equivalent of the young person’s “like” or “you know” or, the worst offender, “you know what I’m sayin’?”. I don’t like and many times I don’t know. Use “that” when you need it, otherwise restructure the sentence or hit the delete key. ’nuff said.
William Safire, wordsmith and columnist for the New York Times, once wrote that he wanted to get a dog and name it “Peeve.” Then he could introduce it, saying, “This is my pet, Peeve.”
Mine are misuse of apostrophes (its/it’s, desk’s, desks’), twisting nouns into verbs (medal, impact, duet), and tossing in the word “of” where it does not belong (it’s not that big of a hill). Arggghh!!!!
What a great opportunity for us grammar snobs to sound off! My extraneous apostrophe pet peeve was already listed. One time, I walked by a dry erase board advertising the “special’s” of the day and couldn’t help but rub off the apostrophe!
I have two more:
Than/then. So many people misuse it, even in professional circles.
And the worst, using “of” instead of “have” as in “I could of gone to the game.”
What’s with adults using 2nd grade grammar?!
Don’t throw tomatoes at me purists. I’m actually enjoying the loosening up of formality in writing. I’ve been teaching freshman comp for the past year and it’s been really interesting to compare my generation (I’m 40-something) with the younger generation. I also work in social media. With electronic media, we live in soundbites. Twitter has forced us to get really creative with the 140 character limit and I love it! It’s true economy in words.
I’m still in shock that they are teaching my 3rd grader to write in cursive. That’s a bit like handing him a movie to watch on a VCR or a telephone with a cord – never coming back!
One of the mistakes my students make often is the incorrect use of affect and effect. But I get it, I have to stop myself and figure out which is the noun and which is the verb sometimes.
Since about four out of five respondents so far have cheated on the “one only” request, I will too–but I’ll leave out ones already mentioned, and will set myself an 80-word limit.
-Dangling modifiers: “Wondering what to do, the clock struck twelve.”
-“They” for “he or she.” (There’s nothing sexist about using either “he” or “she” generically where both are given fair turns.)
-“That” instead of “who” when referring to a human being, as though people were objects.
Where do I begin? How about with the misuse of the reflexive pronoun “myself.” I noted getting two separate emails this week from online marketers containing such an error. One began with “Myself and Bob will be putting on a webinar this week.” The other stated “That is one thing that myself and the other members of my team do very well.”
I find myself wanting to tear my hair out when I read such things. I, myself, never make such mistakes.
Has no one mentioned the split infinitive? Ever since Star Trek’s “to boldly go” (which always sets my teeth on edge), it has been used commonly and without qualm.
Ah, what fun…;) I KNEW this would be a well-visited post… Speaking of which, did I write that correctly? Is in “well-visited” vs. “well visited”? I know with all these grammar gurus in attendance, I’m sure someone can be the correct and final arbiter…
But, you guys have covered SO many of the egregiously common and commonly egregious offenders! I need to rack my brain a little to see if I can come up with any you haven’t noted, but I’m sure we have a ways to go…
My faves from above? The overuse of “that” (not technically or grammatically incorrect, but so unnecessary in so many cases, and by dropping it in much of your writing, you really make it more readable and more conversational. It’s something (that) I relatively recently had brought to my attention.
Also, using you vs. your (i.e., “I appreciate you reminding me of my appointment (wrong)” vs. “your reminding me…” So common it’s been accepted into the vernacular.
Ah, just thought of another one: using “more” instead of “fewer” when referring to thing that can be counted. Fewer people, not more people.
Okay, gotta run. In Maine with 7 friends, and lobster just came out of the pot… I know, not fair to rub it in… 😉 Be back later…
PB
After reading about all these pet peeves, I could care less. Except that it really should be “I *couldn’t* care less,” but people misuse that expression all the time. That’s my grammatical pet peeve.
Fun topic, Peter.
@Peter: Did you really mean “more” vs. “fewer”? Or did you mean “less” vs. “fewer”?
Since moving to the Midwest 28 years ago, I’ve repeatedly encountered a peculiarity in the vernacular wherein the infinitive “to be” is omitted from phrases of necessity. Laments such as “The floor needs mopped,” “The dog needs groomed,” or “The oil needs changed” are commonplace. I don’t get it. I grew up in the deep South, where we know how to speak correctly: “The oil needs to be changed ’cause I’m fixin’ to carry my husband to the airport.”
There are a lot that bother me, but the worst is “most unique”. I hear it all the time!
Someone mentioned about having a question without a question mark. Much more common I find is adding question marks to statements. Like this?Aaagghh!
Thanks Julie,
Yeah, what she said…;)
I was obviously moving too fast when I wrote it, something one doesn’t want to do in the midst of a forum on bad grammar… Unless the goal is to keep providing comment fodder… 😉
So, yes, “less” vs. “fewer,” for, as one grammar site defined it, “mass nouns” (less, as in less tape, work, sunshine, mess) vs. “count nouns” (fewer, as in jobs, pencils, friends).
And while we’re at it, further (for metaphorical distance; “he went further in life than his brother”) vs. farther (for actual distance; “he threw the ball farther…” But this one isn’t AS well-known, so we’ll cut some slack…
PB
I work with a lot of international clients. English isn’t their first language. My biggest grammatical pet peeve is when they say “advice me” instead of “advise me.” It’s a very common mistake with that group. I’m hardly a grammatical purist, but that one makes me feel like my brain might explode.
A HUGE annoyance from my retailing days: using everyday as one word when it doesn’t modify anything, as in low prices everyday vs everyday low prices. See it constantly in ads. Actually had to argue the point with marketing execs with who insisted on leaving as is. Even the retailer’s ad agency of record, (one of the biggest global conglomerates,) kept using it in their work.
I’m not really a grammar cop, but some mistakes bug me. “Often times” for example. Why can’t we just say “often?” Recently I’ve seen this phrase in several places: “could of” instead of “could have” or even “could’ve.”
Then there is the whole question of punctuation going inside or outside the quotation marks. I know that rule varies by location, but if they comments on this post are any indication, the trend is heavily in favor of the punctuation going outside.
Phrases with inherent redundancy. A few heard on the news:
After the crash, rescuers found two live survivors. (All the other survivors were dead.)
After setting off the bomb in Oslo, the man traveled to an offshore island (as opposed to an island ON shore which, in Norway, is simply called “land”) and began shooting students there.
I love this post. Some of the above commentors snagged some of my favorite peeves, but there are always more.
The mixing up of “imply” and “infer” by writers and journalists who should know better. I suppose I get a little flip when someone says to me, “So, are you inferring that ________?”
I can’t help responding with, “Well, I’m not inferring, but I’m definitely implying.”
I usually get a glazed look in return.
Alot instead of a lot.
Literally and figuratively. Heard a news anchorwoman say, “I literally exploded with laughter.”
THAT would have been a pretty sight, no doubt.
It’s real good, or real healthy, or real smart. Since when did “really” take so much more effort to use? I guess it’s real hard to figure out.
I make allowances for someone’s socio-economic background. After all, the most important thing is what is being communicated rather than the finess with it’s done. However, I make no such allowances for writers and professionals who are supposedly educated, and whose stock in trade is their ability to communicate well.
I work in the film and TV industry, and it is amazing to see the blatant grammar, spelling and usage mistakes by people who purport to be scriveners.
I could go on, but I’m getting real tired.