Official grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. rant thread v. I hate you, Nirvana

[bosk1]

We have these threads every once in awhile where we post that one mistake that drives us nuts and drives us to rant and baselessly try to make ourselves sound superior to all those poor, illiterate fools who get it wrong.

My peeve of the day:  "Never mind" is two words.  It isn't "nevermind."  I hate you so much, Kurt Cobain for singlehandedly convincing half the English speaking world to unwittingly spell it incorrectly.  I hate you so much.

[black_biff_stadler]

Eh. Compound words as well as much of the English language are based on very arbitrary rules that are incessantly contradicted. Nevermind the bollocks, here are the grammar nazis!

[Implode]

Every day vs everyday is probably the most common mistake I see. You see it wrong on billboards all the time.

[Perpetual Change]

English is a terrible language for hard 'n fast grammar rules. For that, you need French. Compound words don't bother me. They're already implicitly acceptable in most cases.

I really hate apostrophes on proper nouns that already end with S.

Jesus', Moses', Ravens', etc.

Easily one of my least favorite nuances of the English language.

[Dimitrius]

I hate Nirvana for being shit music, but grammar's fine too.

[Zook]

I didn't develop that grammatical error from that shit hole band.

[Chino]

Saw this on Instagram yesterday...

[Zook]

Saw this on Instagram yesterday...

With the world full of lazy people who have to abbreviate words as little as four letters, it puzzles me why anyone would take the time to type like that. It looks obnoxious and I can't imagine it being all that fun to type.

[Bolsters]

My extremely aggravating pet peeve at the moment: "would of" "could of" "should of" and the like. How the fuck could someone be so stupid as to think these words together make any sense? They must have absolutely no idea how to use the word "of" or even the meaning of the word if they think this is even remotely correct, because sentences with "could of" make absolutely zero sense. And have they no knowledge of the word "have" at all?

The most annoying parts are: that this is becoming extremely prevalant, I see it on internet forums, on Facebook, everywhere, almost every day. That and it's usually always people who are primarily english-speaking doing this, and not people who learned english as a second language and have an excuse for things like this, which means that these people don't even understand their own, and in many cases only, language.

[KevShmev]

My extremely aggravating pet peeve at the moment: "would of" "could of" "should of" and the like. How the fuck could someone be so stupid as to think these words together make any sense? They must have absolutely no idea how to use the word "of" or even the meaning of the word if they think this is even remotely correct, because sentences with "could of" make absolutely zero sense. And have they no knowledge of the word "have" at all?

The most annoying parts are: that this is becoming extremely prevalant, I see it on internet forums, on Facebook, everywhere, almost every day. That and it's usually always people who are primarily english-speaking doing this, and not people who learned english as a second language and have an excuse for things like this, which means that these people don't even understand their own, and in many cases only, language.

This.  I almost never give friends crap for texting with bad spelling (since almost everyone abbreviates in texting), but a friend said "could of" in a text the other day and I gave her crap. I was like, "Come on, you are a college graduate, too; you should know better!!"

[theseoafs]

Dude, "could of" pisses me off. 

[Bolsters]

inb4 people criticise me for beginning a sentence with "and" I should of re-read my post before posting.

[BlobVanDam]

We have these threads every once in awhile where we post that one mistake that drives us nuts and drives us to rant and baselessly try to make ourselves sound superior to all those poor, illiterate fools who get it wrong.

My peeve of the day:  "Never mind" is two words.  It isn't "nevermind."  I hate you so much, Kurt Cobain for singlehandedly convincing half the English speaking world to unwittingly spell it incorrectly.  I hate you so much.

As soon as I saw Nirvana in the thread title, I knew you were going to refer to that one. I'll just add it to the incredible long list of reasons to hate Nirvana.

The most common typo I see on forums (that therefore bothers me most just by sheer numbers alone), is confusing their/there/they're.
Also, spelling 'definitely' as 'defiantly'. Whenever I see a sentence like "I defiantly want some ice cream!" I think, "well who are you defying? Why the need to be so rebellious just for ice cream?" How badly are you pronouncing 'definitely' that you could possibly think it's spelled like that?!

[alirocker08]

We had a debate about grammatical errors yesterday, whether they should be called errors and what this indicates about the English language in general. It's definitely an interesting debate.

[robwebster]

Tell you what, if we're collecting all our grammar nitpickery.

It astonishes me that Paul McCartney could make something as brilliant and inventive as Live and Let Die out of nothing, but couldn't turn "this ever-changing world in which we live in" into the significantly-less-redundant "this ever-changing world in which we're living." He'd already done 99% of the work! You barely even pronounce it differently. But, no! Sticks out as a terrible line in a great song. Arrrrgh!

[Kotowboy]

English is a terrible language for hard 'n fast grammar rules. For that, you need French. Compound words don't bother me. They're already implicitly acceptable in most cases.

I really hate apostrophes on proper nouns that already end with S.

Jesus', Moses', Ravens', etc.

Easily one of my least favorite nuances of the English language.

This is one of mine too. People put an apostrophe at the end of a word just because it happen's to end in s 

[Kotowboy]

We have these threads every once in awhile where we post that one mistake that drives us nuts and drives us to rant and baselessly try to make ourselves sound superior to all those poor, illiterate fools who get it wrong.

My peeve of the day:  "Never mind" is two words.  It isn't "nevermind."  I hate you so much, Kurt Cobain for singlehandedly convincing half the English speaking world to unwittingly spell it incorrectly.  I hate you so much.

As soon as I saw Nirvana in the thread title, I knew you were going to refer to that one. I'll just add it to the incredible long list of reasons to hate Nirvana.

The most common typo I see on forums (that therefore bothers me most just by sheer numbers alone), is confusing their/there/they're.
Also, spelling 'definitely' as 'defiantly'. Whenever I see a sentence like "I defiantly want some ice cream!" I think, "well who are you defying? Why the need to be so rebellious just for ice cream?" How badly are you pronouncing 'definitely' that you could possibly think it's spelled like that?!

Your for You Are is the absolute worst.

But yeah - spelling Definitely as Defiantly is just ridiculous. Not only is it spelled wrong but it's a different word altogether !

[wolfking]

We have these threads every once in awhile where we post that one mistake that drives us nuts and drives us to rant and baselessly try to make ourselves sound superior to all those poor, illiterate fools who get it wrong.

My peeve of the day:  "Never mind" is two words.  It isn't "nevermind."  I hate you so much, Kurt Cobain for singlehandedly convincing half the English speaking world to unwittingly spell it incorrectly.  I hate you so much.

I like this.  I am constantly picking people up on their grammer.  Seriously, people are so fucking stupid.

[Tick]

Good grammar is not one of my best attributes.

[jingle.boy]

People sure have alot of opinions about this.

See what I did there?

Everyone has their typo moments as well, and fat thumbs/auto-correct don't always fix the situation...often make it worse.  Could of is inexcusable though.  Thankfully, I've only seen it a handful of times.  I don't get too bent out of shape.  Some are dyslexic too; some just have literacy challenges when it comes to writing (and/or speaking, and/or spelling ... I know there are a handful of words I ALWAYS spell wrong and have to double-check).

[robwebster]

What I would say about internet grammar, specifically, is that my grammar is my business, and their own grammar is theirs. If I'm having a discussion with someone, I'd rather focus on what they're saying than the way they're saying it. I love the language, and I shudder a little when I see a mistake, but it's not a problem, it's not an edited resource. If we were talking newspapers, bulletins, posters, adverts, song lyrics, cooking instructions, anything professional, sure - but I'm not here to be professional! Unless a spelling or grammar mistake is particularly funny, there's no reason to flag it up.

And in that spirit:

We have these threads every once in awhile where we post that one mistake that drives us nuts and drives us to rant and baselessly try to make ourselves sound superior to all those poor, illiterate fools who get it wrong.

My peeve of the day:  "Never mind" is two words.  It isn't "nevermind."  I hate you so much, Kurt Cobain for singlehandedly convincing half the English speaking world to unwittingly spell it incorrectly.  I hate you so much.

I like this.  I am constantly picking people up on their grammer.  Seriously, people are so fucking stupid.

If this is a joke, it's a brilliant one.

[Perpetual Change]

Good grammar is not one of my best attributes.

Some might say you're completely "mentall" 

I prefer "alot" to "a lot". What is "a lot"? A parking place? Please.

[Kotowboy]

People sure have alot of opinions about this.

See what I did there?

Everyone has their typo moments as well, and fat thumbs/auto-correct don't always fix the situation...often make it worse.  Could of is inexcusable though.  Thankfully, I've only seen it a handful of times.  I don't get too bent out of shape.  Some are dyslexic too; some just have literacy challenges when it comes to writing (and/or speaking, and/or spelling ... I know there are a handful of words I ALWAYS spell wrong and have to double-check).

i never know how to spel guarantee.

I always have to fluff it and let auto-correct help me out. It's such a weird spelling.

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

My extremely aggravating pet peeve at the moment: "would of" "could of" "should of" and the like. How the fuck could someone be so stupid as to think these words together make any sense? They must have absolutely no idea how to use the word "of" or even the meaning of the word if they think this is even remotely correct, because sentences with "could of" make absolutely zero sense. And have they no knowledge of the word "have" at all?

The most annoying parts are: that this is becoming extremely prevalant, I see it on internet forums, on Facebook, everywhere, almost every day. That and it's usually always people who are primarily english-speaking doing this, and not people who learned english as a second language and have an excuse for things like this, which means that these people don't even understand their own, and in many cases only, language.

This, 1,000 times over.  Also your/you're, their/they're, its/it's.

[robwebster]

Good grammar is not one of my best attributes.

Some might say you're completely "mentall" 

I prefer "alot" to "a lot". What is "a lot"? A parking place? Please.

Ambiguous numbery thing - like "a dozen," "a few," "a couple."

Dozen's not ambiguous, but you get the gist. Few's closest.

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

Makes sense, but I've never understood the problem people have with understanding "a couple".  A couple is always two.

[Perpetual Change]

I get "I bought a lot of clothes", but not "I like that a lot". Before the noun, I'm OK with using "a lot". After the noun, you should use "alot".

[robwebster]

I get "I bought a lot of clothes", but not "I like that a lot". Before the noun, I'm OK with using "a lot". After the noun, you should use "alot".

"I like that a bit." "I like that a great deal." "I like that alot."

Spot the odd one out!

As I said - no issues with people using it, fine, don't mind, as long as it's not in a professional capacity. If I can say "alright," you can say "alot." Wouldn't be my choice, but a-okay by me. It's not correct though.

That is - if there is such a thing as correct! I might not like the word I'm about to cite, but if you'll excuse the nepotism, irregardless is officially recognised by Webster. Words are catalogued by usage, and alot gets a lot of usage - but "a lot," certainly, is both widely approved and deeply consistent with the rest of English grammar.

...If there is such a thing as consistent with English grammar.

[jingle.boy]

English grammar could be considered an oxy moron.

One word that gets used a lot in my industry is "incentivize".  This is not a fucking word.  Incentive is the noun ... incent is the verb variant.  I cringe every time I hear incentivize.

[robwebster]

English grammar could be considered an oxy moron.

One word that gets used a lot in my industry is "incentivize".  This is not a fucking word.  Incentive is the noun ... incent is the verb variant.  I cringe every time I hear incentivize.

Incentivise never bothered me! I see what you mean - it's almost like a verb turned into a noun turned into a verb - but I still can't quite get bothered about it. Doing a bit of research, seems like incentivise might be the older word. Both widespread within my lifetime, though. Not sure why I'm so happy with it. Hm!

Purposely, on the other hand - ouch! It's a haemorrhage of an adverb. Be quick, run quickly. Be stealthy, run stealthily. Be... purpose, to run purposely?! No. Purposeful is the adjective. The adverb form should be be purposefully - but I think the word most people are usually getting at is "deliberately." And yet, purposely is verified! Understand why, but I hate that word. It's a blot. An abberation. Nasty little corruption - just feels wrong.

[bosk1]

English grammar could be considered an oxy moron.

One word that gets used a lot in my industry is "incentivize".  This is not a fucking word.  Incentive is the noun ... incent is the verb variant.  I cringe every time I hear incentivize.

Well, and besides, it's much more fun to jingle-ize anyway.  Who in their right mind incentivizes when they can jingle-ize instead?  WHO?  Incentivizing is so 2012.

[theseoafs]

This is relevant: https://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

I get "I bought a lot of clothes", but not "I like that a lot". Before the noun, I'm OK with using "a lot". After the noun, you should use "alot".

Weird opinion.  "Alot" isn't ever a word, and if you're around grammar people such as those that have congregated in this thread, they'll be upset with you.

We had a debate about grammatical errors yesterday, whether they should be called errors and what this indicates about the English language in general. It's definitely an interesting debate.

I'll tell you what, Ali -- I don't know if you've ever had a linguistics class, but the first thing they teach you in one is that there's no such thing as "bad" grammar.  There's "standard" grammar -- the grammar that most people agree on -- and "nonstandard" grammar, which make up the bulk of a person's grammatical "errors".  The fact is that enough people make the same mistake consistently for long enough, it can become a real, true part of the English grammar.

[Perpetual Change]

This is relevant: https://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

I get "I bought a lot of clothes", but not "I like that a lot". Before the noun, I'm OK with using "a lot". After the noun, you should use "alot".

Weird opinion.  "Alot" isn't ever a word, and if you're around grammar people such as those that have congregated in this thread, they'll be upset with you.

I am grammar people, and I say alot can be a word.

[theseoafs]

Well, I say "Frindle" can be a word.

[jingle.boy]

So is gigormous... as in this thread is now gigormously off topic.



Not that I really care, I just wanted to use that emot.