Hi there, Montrealer. (I live near Ottawa.)

What bugs me is the surreptitious dropping of the internal vowel change in tenses. Specifically, it used to be that one shined shoes, but the sun shone. Nowadays there's a lot of "the sun shined", which grates on me.

Other examples - but that's the common one.

Hi, Ottawan! Yes, that's awful, and it reminds me of another verb horror: to "grow" your business. I mean, you can grow a spider-plant, but a business? I really hate that.

And "gifting". What's wrong with "giving"?

Myriad - As my son would say, 'zackly!

A woman after my own heart! Get ready, though. When I wrote my Grammar Nazi post, I was not always, shall I say, given props.
:D
Lezlie

@myriad - I think it comes from a trend of people pronouncing "shone" to rhyme with "moan" instead of "gone". When corrected, they give up and use the very juvenile sounding "shined" instead.

My pet hate is "momentarily" to mean "soon" instead of "briefly". I often relate the tale of hearing an airport employee at Honolulu's inter-island terminal announce over the PA system that our plane would be at the gate momentarily. The lady in front of me in line asked me to hold her place, and went over and corrected him. He made a new announcement saying it would arrive "any minute". She told me "I couldn't let it go. I used to be that boy's English teacher, and there are other people here who know that."

I once encountered a book that must have been edited by someone in a hurry, where the author must have used "momentarily" to mean "quickly", but a quick search and replace had led to a sentence that said of the hero "Briefly, he had jumped up on the table".

They're, their. Its alright. Alot of us agree with you. Your write. Definatly. :^)

Satori1 - YES!! All of those!! The worst offender of them is, for me, "alot"!

Funniest thing I ever saw, though, was a "word" (I use the term very loosely) in a composition handed in to me when I taught a remedial English class - at junior college level, mind you - the "word" was ANOID. It actually took me a few minutes to figure out what it was supposed to be, as it wasn't really clear from the context. Anyone see it? Anyone? ;-)

Lezlie, can you please post the link to your Grammar Nazi post?

Oh, and has anyone here ever read "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" - hilarious!

Annoyed? A Nerd? Yes, read that book..it's great. A friend of mine teaching in Compton CA assigned an essay on--something or other--and when one kid turned it in, written on top in large capitals was "SA". It took her a while. But she got it.

Satori1 - "Annoyed" - yes, that's right!
"SA" - I love it!!!

So were you all too polite to mention my lousy typo - the dog that "big" its own tail? Thanks to my brother, who was too nice to comment publicly here! Thanks, Dan!

A typo is a forgiveable "slip" of the keyboard, not a repetitive grammatical or spelling "ignorance" error. We're not THAT tough a crowd. I would have complained, had it anoid me more. ☺

I appreciate your merciful kindness, O Satori1! So glad you weren't too anoid by my keyboard's boo-boo! :-)

Even the best of keyboards can have an off day. Hehe.

Ellie, I'm sorry I didnt' see your request sooner. Here is the link to my post: http://open.salon.com/blog/linthesoutheast/2010/05/13/how_to_make_me_flinch

Thanks for the link, L in the Southeast, will check it out! :-)

whip cream
could care less
different than
off of
(just between you and I) these are a few of my favorite pet peeves.
Nice to meet you, 'nother Montrealler here.
♥

Fusun A - Yes!! Also: a fast-pace environment. Or: old-fashion smoked meat! Grrr!

Stellaa - and your point is...?

Please capitalize, people. When it's appropriate, you know, use the big letters.

FusunA - Thanks for favouriting me! :-) Now I will read all your posts to catch up!
Thanks to others who favourited (argh, what a verb, eh?!) me too.
Oh wait, most were from me.
;-)

Just as an aside, one who is no longer able to retain a grip on their mind is LOSING their mind. If you are loosing your mind, you are setting it free. Not sure how you meant your remark. I do agree with your point, however. Great post.

Hi George! I was making fun at the expense of the hundreds (thousands?) of people online who don't seem to know that it is, indeed, "lose." I think they write "loose" because they figure it's the same as "choose"... Oh let's face it, English spelling is so crazy.

My Grammer always treated me real good.

The sins you mention bother me (at least those that I'm not too ignorant to commit myself -I have no formal training as a writer.)

In addition are flagrant mis-spellings (did I get that hypen right?) of proper names. Not obscure ones, or tough ones - like Nietzche (this spell checker doesn't like that, so maybe I got it wrong.) No, I'm talking about "Bradd Pit" and "Mit Romny" and the like. Doesn't anyone have a second to look them up? What's horrifying is the creeping sense that people just don't know when they're spelling things wrong, and don't care.

However, there is one tough issue, one I discussed at length with a writer friend the other day. "Hopefully." Yes, I know this is dreadful: "Hopefully, it won't rain today. " Who the heck is hoping? Except...I haven't found a better way to say it. "One hopes that"? Who hopes? "It is to be hoped"? Same problem, plus addition of unnecessary passive voice and archaic voice. "Mercifully" presents the same dilemma.

Maybe you can help me out here.

A semi-colon is most definitely not the same as a colon; the average colon is about 5' long and it is a good idea to hang on to as much of it as you can.

My big one is the loose/ lose conundrum. And the there/ their/ they're scenario and your/ you're. I'm still perfecting my skills, though.

I share some of you're con-cerns. Well wrote.

Nice grammar rant!

In keeping with the spirit of hypercorrectness, though, I'll object to this:

that’s what a colon is for, as in: pie, cake and donuts.

By some standards, prepositions should not be followed by a colon.

I'll give you some props osn this one. You've hit one of my hot buttons but, like many, I will occasionally fall prey (not pray) to the misplaced apostrophe. That concerns me less than the total lack of ability of some people to properly spell at even a 5th grade level--and it's (notice the proper use of the apostrophe there?) becoming commonplace. Where are we going to be another half century down the road? (fortunately I'll be dead)

Does anyone want to tackle, lie, lay, laid and lain?

This was great fun.

LMuse: Only strict traditionalists object to hopefully, happily, mercifully. Websters New World indeed has hopefully as a synonym for 'it is to be hoped'. Hopefully, that helps.

Here are some of the generational shifts in English I've noticed, especially with the advent of the Internet. I don’t claim to speak or write perfect English, but most of these seem basic. I’m convinced they remain in our daily language because people don’t read enough, and because they mispronounce the language in the first place:

--"Alot" for a lot
--"Alright" for all right
--"60's" for '60s (referring to decades; apostrophes indicate possession or the absence of a number or word; for age and temperatures, no apostrophe needed at all.)
--"hark" for harken
--"bit" for bitten
--Mass confusion about they're/their/there
--Mass confusion about its/it’s
--Misuse of "lie" and "lay"
--Misuse of verb tenses: “He sung that song well, dog” instead of “He sang that song well, dog.” OR “The ship sunk” instead of “The ship sank.”
--The dropping of apostrophes altogether because it's too hard to type them on tiny mobile phone Qwerty keyboards.
--"Hone in" for home in (think homing device)
--The insertion of apostrophes in simple plurals, including in proper family names (i.e. "the Wilsons'" instead of the Wilsons)
--The absence of the subjunctive (i.e. "We better go" instead of "We had better go.")
--The combination of common words (i.e. "healthcare" instead of health care)
--No verb/subject agreement to avoid masculine/feminine awkwardness (i.e. "Each person writes according to their experience.")
--Use of British spellings in the United States (i.e. "travelled" instead of traveled or "cancelled" instead of canceled or "towards" instead of toward)
--Use of "anyways" (colloquial) instead of anyway
--Over capitalization of common nouns to make them sound more important and officious, especially true among government writers (i.e. the "State of Colorado" instead of the "state of Colorado" or "the University community" instead of "the university community.")
--Putting punctuation outside of quotation marks (i.e. "I love you", he said, instead of "I love you," he said.
--Redundancies such as "the Colorado State Capitol Building" instead of "the Colorado Capitol"
--Mass confusion between "capital" (city, state or country seat of government) and "capitol" (government building)
--Botching of time sequences. Use of "9:00pm to 11:00pm " instead of "9 p.m. to 11 p.m." or "9-11 p.m." (In static copy, there is no need to use zeroes; minutes don't change on paper. There should be spaces between numbers and letters.)
--Mass confusion between "who's" and "whose"
--Redundancy of "exact same" (It is either "exact" or "the same." No need to use both.)
--Overuse of "first-ever" (If something is first, it's first. End of story. No need to use "ever," too.)
--Use of redundant "new record." If it's a record, it's a record. All records are new.
--Mass confusion between "farther" and "further" (One connotes actual distance, the other degree.)
--Misuse of "none," which means "not one."
--Overuse of "impact" as a verb to convey drama. It's a noun. "The storm tore through the town, and residents felt its impact for weeks."
--Same with "critique," which used to be a noun, but has become an overused verb to replace "review," "criticize" and "assess."
--Overuse of commas in a simple series.
--Butchering of other languages, especially Spanish (i.e. "corectomundo" for correcto or "exactomundo" for exacto or "mano a mano" for "man-to-man," when it really means hand-to-hand or "perfectomundo" for perfecto or “carumba” for caramba.
--Use of "marketing English" in formal writing (i.e. use of "nite" instead of night or an ampersand instead of the actual word "and.")
--Use of two spaces between each sentence, a holdover from the typewriter era, and completely unnecessary in the computer age.

For most young people that I know, the only reading they do is when they receive a text message. I don't think language skills will ever be what they once were.

When Pulitzer starts giving out prizes for anally retentive old spinsters and their plainly perfect punctuation, I will look for your photo in the paper. Until then, did you know that it hardly matters what letters are placed in front of you when you are reading a sentence? You anticipate what comes next anywat, so a misspielled wurd of tvo, while certainly noticed by someone like you, doesn't take away from what the author is trying to convey in their writing.

English is a fucked up miss-mash of Latin and German, yet nearly all of its rules come from Latin only. Is it any wonder people fuck them up all the time? It only bugs me in the places where the words actually change and those changes become accepted (backwards...REALLY?!?!?!? Prepositions/adverbs have plurals/tense now?) simply because of laziness...these are the changes that make reading 100-year-old books so difficult.

But, in the end, it's i before e, except after c, and that's just weird.

Another nit: "from whence" (". . .from whence they came . . .") rather than "whence", which means "from". Saw "from whence" in an AP story last week. Sad.

OK, I'll add to this list: How about those who don't know the difference between "take" and "bring"? Or who think that "presently" and "now" are synonymous? Or who think it's correct to say "the media is" (not to mention "data is").

Oh, never mind. I used to make a living correcting this stuff. Mostly, it rolls off my back (or "roles" off my back, if some are to be believed) nowadays. And I do have a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

Malcolm: You have to know the rules to bend them. ... Literature, like rock lyrics, is different. No one is saying poetry and lit have to be perfect. Writers do a disservice when their dialogue does not reflect the truth of their characters, in all of their dimensions. We're talking about the mechanics of day-to-day English, my friend.

Actually, Debs, I'd say that what you're talking about is American, and not English. Australian, British, American and even Canadian English have split so far away from one another that to call them the same language is simply not to recognize the myriad differences.

There are reasons why some of the rules of grammar are broken (both knowingly and unknowingly), and as I said, my only beef comes about when the unknowing have their ignorance adopted by the knowing for the sake of convenience (in standard American English...I do not care what is done with Jive or Spanglish, as few pieces of lasting literature have been written in those languages).

However, you people aren't pissed about the grammar stuff (at least I hope not, because if you are, then you lead miserable lives, or you're English teachers, which is to say the same thing). What you're pissed about is what the errors that Ellie listed are indicative of - people can't know what the correct word is if they haven't read the word in context several times prior.

You see this in incorrect idiom usage - intensive purposes, for example (my personal favorite...).

Spelling, on its own, matters not at all. Neither does grammar (If knowing and breaking the rules is acceptable, which legally speaking would be the greater offense, then not knowing them and breaking them is equally acceptable, unless logic is something about which you don't care...) If it did, you would be highly anticipating the next Batman movie, The Dark Cniht Rises. Or, perhaps you're one of those people who are still
pissed at Chaucer.

Malcolm: I'm not pissed at anything or anybody. You, on the other hand, sure sound like you're pissed about everything. Your rants really support the case for writing in clear, concise language with the goal of communicating with fellow human beings. I couldn't understand a lot of your last message because your emotions really tripped you up. ... In fact, I admire elegance in any language. Your comment about "jive and Spanglish" smacks of bigotry, and it has nothing to do with me, my life experience, or my thoughts about people and language, especially not the English language.

Use of two spaces between each sentence, a holdover from the typewriter era, and completely unnecessary in the computer age.

I'll object to this as a problem in writing, though the reason is a bit subtle. In my ordinary writing, I put two spaces after a full stop (a period at the end of a sentence) mainly for convenience in editing. In the text editor I use for writing, I can move the cursor to the end of a sentence with a single keystroke, even if the sentence starts, "Mr. So-and-so..." My editor doesn't confuse a period plus a space with the end of a sentence, and this makes it easier for me to do my work.

Now, this can look terrible in typeset text--but who's at fault? I claim that it's not me. It's the fault of whoever has built a system that presents the text someone has written verbatim. There are typesetting programs out there that will automatically take care of a double space at the end of a sentence. It's unreasonable to expect a writer to have to worry about such things.

(Sorry for the length. This is one of my pet peeves, software that puts the burden on end users rather than handling simple problems automatically.)

Love to see this post wake up almost a year later!

Did anyone mention often misplacing the adverb "only"?
See how it affects the sentence:

Only she loves him.
She only loves him.
She loves only him.
She loves him only.

well, someone was pissed, because my subsequent comment was erased.

Back in my day, we had 9 planets.*

*angry, old man shaking his fist into the wind implied.

She only loves him.
She loves only him.
She loves him only.

In each of these sentences, the meaning is that subject loves the object, and no other. ONLY placing only at the begining of the sentence changes the meaning in any substantive way.

Seriously, can we please get a story of walking uphill both ways to school? It would be both more entertaining and infinitely more useful...

My, my, my. A sleeping giant has awakened! A dead volcano has suddenly erupted, if you will! A year later... a sort of mass delayed reaction, we could say!! Ok, listen up, I am now going to comment on the comment-worthy comments.

Muse: "flagrant mis-spellings (did I get that hypen right?)" Ah, nope! Doesn't take a hyphen. Re "Nietzche" - you're missing an "s." It's Nietzsche. The way I remember it is: the tz, followed by "sch" as in "school." Works for me. Apropos of "Doesn't anyone have a second to look them up?" In fact, you could save Wikipedia as a toolbar bookmark; that's what I do to make it simple to check the spelling of a name. (Most famous names are in there.) Re "hopefully" - I avoid it by writing "I hope that..."

Phyllis45: Oh yes, those mistakes drive me crazy!

Tr ig: haha!

Rob St. Amant: "Nice grammar rant!

Thanks!

"In keeping with the spirit of hypercorrectness, though, I'll object to this:
that’s what a colon is for, as in: pie, cake and donuts.
By some standards, prepositions should not be followed by a colon."

You're right! I hang my head in shame... HOWEVER, I could say it's, er, stylistic license, yeah, that's it!

Walter Blevins: "fortunately I'll be dead" Tsk. Walter, Walter. Take two Celexa and call me in the morning.

Leepin' Larry (as opposed to Leapin' Larry?): re lie, lay, laid and lain - quite easy. When you LIE down, or (LAY down in the past tense - or LAIN - he had lain in bed for five days in a drunken stupor), it is an intransitive verb. It has no object. You do not "lie" the napkin down, see? But LAY (LAID past tense) is a transitive verb when it takes an object. You lay the cutlery on the table now. You laid the dishes on the table yesterday. (I'm very concerned about my damn table, ok?) Granted, I can see where some people can get confused because LAY is mentioned twice up there. In that case...picky, picky. Just email me, ok?

The bad scot: That helps a great deal! You are in fact a... Great Scott!

Deborah: Don't you have anything else to do with your time? ;-) Are you by any chance procrastinating? C'mon, you know you have a book in you!! But GREAT list!! Let's see: re "home in on" - I once made just such an argument to a screenwriter when I was script coordinator on a series and edited/proofed the writers' scripts. He insisted he was right ("hone in") - but I fixed it anyway. :-) Again, truly a wonderful list. You must be an editor, comme moi!

I just thought of a couple more items that make me nuts: He "hung" himself. It's "hanged" himself. (Hung is when you "hung" the clothes on the line.

Aficionado. One "f" and one "c."

Inoculate. One "n" and one "c."

Oh heck. I'm too embarased to continue. :=O

Very unique. If something is unique, you don't need the "very."

Frank Michels: I totally agree. Unless young people (are forced to) read lots of good books, they'll never attain decent writing skills. Text messaging, instant chats - also counter-productive. Their writing reflects their speech - over-colloquial, like, y'know? Kids' writing today, even college level, is scary!!

Malcom XY: "You anticipate what comes next anywat, so a misspielled wurd of tvo, while certainly noticed by someone like you, doesn't take away from what the author is trying to convey in their writing." I beg to differ. It's extremely distracting, especially to those who care about such things (us anally retentive old spinsters). A distracted reader quickly becomes a pissed-off reader. The writer loses all credibility. It shows that a writer with such crappy skills doesn't care whether or not his/her message is understood and appreciated.

Boanerges1: Me too, what a lovely little book that is, huh?

Deborah: "In fact, I admire elegance in any language. " You go, girl!!

FusunA.: Hi there! No, "only" you mentioned this.

Thanks, all, for your excellent input!

Ellie

People find reasons to ignore messages they don't want to hear. A pissed off reader is a thing that shouldn't exist unless the meaning being conveyed by the words being read are off-piss-worthy.

Unless you're reading a Canadian or Australian with their humour and their theatres. That's enough to bring a sober man to drink.