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.)?
Aha, caught myself. I meant, “finesse with which it’s done.”
Writin’s real hard.
“A terrible tragedy occurred today…” as opposed to, what, a delightful tragedy?
Misspelled words. Ugh. To me it equates sloppiness, which is probably far from the truth, but that’s my mind for ya.
My college editing professor absolutely drilled that punctuation always goes inside the quotes.
Always.
Always.
Always.
Always.
She edited Time Life books for 20yrs and made $100+/hr as a freelance editor. I wasn’t gonna argue with her. 🙂
The Gregg Reference Manual (every writer should have one of these – awesome reference and the definitive on grammar) states that punctuation inside quotes is the preferred American style, while punctuation outside quotes is the British style.
Punctuation Queen, I am not. So the above manual is priceless. And no, I didn’t use it for this message! 🙂
Coming a bit late to the party. 🙂 This topic is always a winner.
I second the loose versus lose as a biggie. Loose is what you’re trying to lose. 🙂
My Dad’s pet peeve was effect versus affect so I always seem to notice that one. But, I think one that has me grinding my teeth is early on. Even media people use it. Early on what??? How about just early or earlier?
Thanks for the fun post, Peter.
Julie,
You’ll have to be more specific than “The Midwest.” I lived 21 of the first 24 years of my life in Illinois, plus one in Iowa. Then five more in Wisconsin. I never heard anyone speak that way. So it must be a rural thing.
Julie,
Ahh, I see you’re in Indiana. That explains a lot. 😉
Michael and Julie,
I have lived in Northwest Illinois for most of my life and many people use “babies need changed” when speaking. I am probably guilty of it myself. I thank you for pointing it out so I can watch for it in my writing.
My biggest pet peeve is when my kids, and sometimes my wife, use the word “funner.” It has the same effect on me as the sound of the dentist’s drill. I don’t know why.
I was surprised that one of my most commonly-encountered errors has not been mentioned yet — using “insure” in place of “ensure.” I see it ALL THE TIME from business executives who promise their company will stop at nothing to “insure the satisfaction of every customer,” yada yada yada. I’ve even seen it on permanent signage (including a sign at a recently visited national landmark) that was probably proofed a hundred times. In modern usage, at least, “insure” refers to insurance coverage (to protect against financial liability). “Ensure” means to “make sure” something will or won’t happen.
While I do not agree that casual conversation must be as precise as formal writing, (it would be sad to lose all those regional dialects) I cannot stand when people say “pacifically” in place of “specifically,” pronounce the “t” in “often,” say “gesture” with a hard “g,” or put an “m” in the middle of “voluptuous.”
As for writing, an ellipsis with more than three dots is enough to make me lose my…
I agree with these comments 110%. Irregardless, I vow to try and make a 360° change in my bad grammar habits, and make sure myself and my friends do the same.
(And yes, I do know better.)
Thanks for the laugh.
My pet peeve is misuse of “farther” (referring to actual distance, as in “Main Street is farther away than you think”) and “further” (figurative distance, as in “nothing could be further from the truth.”) A fun book on this topic is “The Grouchy Grammarian – A How-Not-To Guide to the 47 Most Common Mistakes in English Made by Journalists, Broadcasters, and Others Who Should Know Better.” The author is Thomas Parrish. Published by John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
I hate when someone’s going to “pour over” something rather than “pore over” it, when people use British spellings because they think they look distinguished, and when someone refers to a blog post as a blog – like “read my last blog to learn about this.”
I noticed this thread topic has broadened to include grammar, usage, punctuation and spelling. I have pet peeves in all categories, but I’ll limit myself to three for now:
“Hopefully” describes a person’s mood. She bounded down the stairs hopefully, she looked up hopefully, she smiled hopefully. I keep hearing sentences like, “Hopefully, we’ll have it by Tuesday.”
My journalism pet peeve is the use of “wife” or “husband” when the spouse is deceased. “Husband of Challenger astronaut” and “wife of slain civil rights leader” imply that the couple are still married. One is the widower, or widow, of a dead person.
Finally, when a doctor retires, he is still a doctor. He is not a former doctor.
I’m not sure how common a blunder this is, but I used to hear the word “conversate” quite a bit. As in: “Could you please stop interrupting? We’re trying to conversate.”
Ugghhh! That’s not a word! It’s just not!
Not only do we “conversate” nowadays, but we also apparently “orientate” our new employees. Once they’ve been properly “orientated” they are free to shout across the counter “I can help who’s next” rather than “I can help whoever is next.” And so it goes.
It seems people are orientated toward subtracting, or adding, nother syllable. Those creatures, pardon me, critters you see in the headlights are raccoons and opossums, not coons and possums.
Off topic, my least favorite twenty-dollar verb is “differentiate”, used instead of “distinguish.” My least favorite adjective is “miscellaneous”, used in print by people who can’t spell it.
Thanks to all – great stuff! And Marty’s comment (so true, by the way…) about new employees at a fast-food counter reminded me of one of my HUGE pet peeves. Now this one moves the discussion in a slightly different direction, but hey, I think we’ve covered a lot of ground, so let’s evolve it a bit!
It’s when waiters (or anyone in a service profession) say “No problem” in response to a thank-you on your part. And not trying to point fingers, but overwhelmingly, it’s young people doing it. It’s always bugged me and I couldn’t put my finger on why until I came across this great article from small-biz guru Jim Blasingame that nails it.
Bottom line, it implies that giving good service, while “no problem” in this case, might be a problem another time. Like they’re indulging you this one time, but hey, my mood could change at any time, so don’t get used to it.
I frequent this one restaurant in my neighborhood, and one of the things I love about it (besides the great food), is the service. The server doesn’t just say “you’re welcome” when you offer thanks, but rather, the even sweeter, “It’s my pleasure” (pointed out in the article). It’s amazing how much more “taken care of ” you feel with just a small change of words.
Anyone else bugged by the “No problem” trend?
PB
Regarding the “less v. fewer” peeve, I saw the new Mercedes-Benz 2012 C-Class Coupe commercial last weekend and the voice-over went on to proclaim, “More power, more style, blah blah… less doors.” Given the commercial was comparing the new coupe to its sedan sibling in the C-Class lineup, I thought it should have been “fewer doors.” In the commercial, a four-door sedan is chained to some rocks, speeds off, and two of the doors are ripped off to reveal the new two-door coupe.
That’s easy. “These ones.” As in “These ones over here.”
For me, it is like someone poking me in the spine with a needle. Repeatedly.
I hear you, Heather… But, hey, count your blessings that you’re not in the South, where (yes, outside the major metros), instead of “these ones” or “those ones,” they’d just say, “theezins” and “thozins”… 😉
PB
oh..and hanged vs hung.
I absolutely cringed when the news lady said “Saddam Hussein was hung today.”
Honey. If he was hung today, he was probably hung yesterday too. But he died because he was hanged.
I taught “Effective Business Writing” on behalf of a training company. The instructional designer included a wonderful list of commonly misused words. Here are just a few of my favorite examples:
Capability vs. Capacity
Capability means having the talent or efficiency for.
Capacity means having the potential or being suitable for holding or storing
Wrong: He has the capacity for the job.
Right: The storeroom has the capacity to hold all our files.
Dilemma vs. Predicament
Dilemma indicates two specific and equally undesirable choices.
Predicament means a generally difficult situation.
Wrong: Her lack of finances is quite a dilemma.
Right: Her dilemma is having to choose between a man she doesn’t love and one she loves, but treats her like crap.
As for the “No problem” issue… Isn’t it the abbreviated version of “Never a problem”?
One of my pet peeves: the use of the object pronoun in place of the subject pronoun. “Him and Becky came over yesterday.” It’s heard frequently here in NJ, as it was in IN a couple years ago. Also overheard in IN: “All’s we need is a good rain.” All’s? Can anyone explain?
Mine has to do with the misuse of negation, like with ‘all don’t’ vs. ‘not all do’. Someone will say something like, ‘all college students don’t go to Harvard’.
They should have said, ‘not all college students go to Harvard’.
As far as word origins go, one of my favorites is the origin of the word ‘vaccinate’. One of the biggest breakthroughs in medicine came from the development of the smallpox (also known as the Variola virus) vaccine. This was a horrible disease that had a high mortality rate and if it didn’t kill you, it could cause blindness and terrible scarring, disfigurement and other complications.
In the 18th century a British physician, Dr. Edward Jenner found that many people who worked on farms did not get infected with smallpox. The reason? They had previously been infected with cowpox from working with cows.
Cowpox is scientifically known as the Vaccinia virus. It is in the poxvirus family like smallpox is, but is a much milder disease.
Doctors and scientists at the time had some notion of the concept of immunization since it was well known at the time that once you had smallpox and survived, you were immune to future outbreaks. The problem was that they were using smallpox (albeit in a controlled manner) to immunize people from smallpox. The process was known as variolation and lots of people died as a result. Jenner’s discovery provided a much safer alternative.
Jenner’s efforts eventually led to the eradication of smallpox in 1979. The Variola virus only exists in laboratories.
Thanks Christopher!
Love the vaccine story – I had heard that. And as a student of Spanish for many years, “vaca” is cow, so I’d made that connection myself – and then got more details over time.
One of my favorite word origins is international distress call used by aviators: “Mayday! Mayday!” Being a little bit of a French student as well, came across this one in my studies. It comes from the French, “M’aidez” which, of course, means “Help me” and is roughly pronounced, ” Mayday.” 😉
PB
The use of “arguably.” I hate it!
The voice on the TV commercial asks “Have you or a loved one become sick or died after taking Topamax (or the current medication that is fuel for the trial lawyers)? I think that they should realize that if I have died, I’m not likely to hear their commercial.
Most infuriating to me is when someone says, “As far as x …” and then leaves out the “is concerned” or even “goes” that one expects to come next. I feel like Roger Rabbit in the movie waiting for the “two bits!” response to the call of “shave and a haircut!”.
And what’s with “irregardless”?
Another thing I hate is when people start a sentence with “and”.
Thanks, Mark!
AND… 😉 Yes, I’m famous for starting sentences with “And.” And I think (geez, I can’t stop myself) there’s a good reason for it. I say it makes your writing more conversational, which make it more interesting. It’s how people talk and how they explain things, and how people think (i.e., in chunks, and as they come up with the next chunk, it’s logical to start their next sentence with “And.” As such, it’s human and it’s real. One can get out of hand with it and I do have to rein myself in from time to time, but frankly, I have no intention of stopping…;)
There’s one I love, and I just heard it several times recently, mostly from young people. You ask them something, and they’re not sure of the answer, and they say, “I think it’s _____, but I’m not 100%.” Not 100% what? Not 100% sure? Not 100% intelligent? Not 100% a sloppy speaker (just 99% a sloppy speaker…). It’s this shorthand, like they’re talking in text mode or something…
PB
Even those who hate the idea of starting a sentence with “and” seem to do it themselves; reread the next-to-last paragraph of Mark’s post.