January 29, 2005

It's annoying when others make those mistakes. It's excruciating when I make them.

(My cat is licking the monitor by the way. She seems to be drawn to your pic...)

Holy shit. You're correct about the preposition thing. I... I've been such a fool...

But you left out the mis-uses of "there" vs. "their" vs. "they're" and "its" vs. "it's" and "your" vs. "you're." It's gut-wrenching when I find that I've made such mistakes.

Shit, I make it a personal mission to be the thorn in you're side that bugs you so.
;)
Too many rules. My writin' sucks and I don't give too shits about it. I ramble, I don't write. I scribble, I blab, and I bitch, and I don't give a rats arse if it's gramatically correct 'cause chances are, half of it's spelled wrong to.

I think I covered a couple of pet peeves just in this comment. If I only had a "Rob's STD Reference", I'd be downtown with my grammar and spellin' but my writin' would still suck.

Why do you think you got an STD Rob? Why?
Since you didn't say anything about questions that end in a period, and not a question mark, I left the question marks in place. Must've been an oversight.

I hope the ice storms don't hit ya. Cleanin' the truck off after one of those sucks. Not bustin' your ass on the way to cleanin' your truck off... priceless.

I hear more people in real life use "and I" incorrectly than I ever have before. It drives me nuts. But, apparently it effects you're psyche more than mine. Why?

Oh, I make at least one of those mistakes, 'cos damn, they're cute!

But frankly I think this revulsion of yours is just a affect, and if you really tried, you could effect a more positive outcome.

In all seriousness, I find these grammatical mistakes forgivable in an e-mail or even a blog post. But it chaps MY ass when I see them in a professionally edited publication. And I do see them from time to time.

I'll be happy when most bloggers and comment posters learn the difference between the words "lose" and "loose".

Conscious and Conscience. Two different words, not interchangable.

I am guilty of the your/you're mistake. Not because I don't know the difference...it's simply because I don't proofread what I write unless it's something important. I am probably also guilty of the I/me mistake on occasion. And the whole lay/layed/laid/lie thing always fucks me up.

If you want to torture yourself, try to get your hands on some college-level writing assignments. The shit that people hand in for formal writing assignments amazes me. They're filled with spelling and grammar errors that my 5th grader could pick up on.

Damn it, now I'm going to be self-concious about my comments here!

Who! Me? Why?

I can forgive it in the blogoshpere to some extent and in Comments sections to an even bigger extent (although I don't put much consideration into the thoughts of idiots) but it bothers me to no end when I read it in newspapers. These people are supposed to be professionals for crying out loud.

Another thing that bothers me is the fucked up train analogy sports reporters use. When things are going well they're on track. When things start to go badly they're getting untracked. Learn the fucking difference!

"Are you feeling badly?"

WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! Unless, of course, the asker was wondering about how your feeling mechanism was working.

"Are you feeling bad?" Right.

Does having someone claiming that you left out "your" vs. "you're" despite having included it in your rant chap your ass?

The talking heads on tv perpetuate these and many other errors every day. What will American speech be in 50 years? I shudder to think.

I have been guilty of many of those things at one time or another. I generally don't put my blog entries through a fine tooth comb. For my professional life, it's a different story.

You're right about all those things. Now add a couple that chap MY ass. The gross overuse and misuse of "myself" in situations where "me" is the proper word.

And the phrase "each and every" is repetitively redundant

For me it's its and it's.

Then there's site, sight and cite. There's cue and queue. Que is a book publisher. There's even peek, peak and pique if you want to get hardcore.

"This is the sort of English up with which I will not put." -- Winston Churchill

What about the pronounciation of the word "nuclear"!

How about,
"toe the line" correct
"tow the line" WRONG

I've never seen it right on a blog.

Also,

"Home in" OK
"Hone in" not only wrong, but stupid

Hone means to sharpen, you hone something.

Finally, I only recently have been able to keep it's and its straight. My wife the editor told me the rule. Possessive nouns have apostrophes, possessive pronouns (his, hers, its) don't.

Why?

The one that I see the most is the use of "reign" and "rein." I see it all the time in the columns of the newspapers and in the blogs of professors. Amazing to me that these idjuts don't know the difference.

I gotcher prepositions rye cheer!

I was going to read to my younger brother, so I went upstairs to his room. He looked at what I was carrying and asked, "What did you bring the book I didn't want to be read to out of up for?"

Apropos of the preposition thing-- a little joke I received yesterday:

A girl from Colorado and a girl from New York were seated side by side on an airplane. The girl from Texas, being friendly and all, said: "So, where y'all from?"
The New York girl said, "From a place where they know better than to use a preposition at the end of a sentence."
The girl from Texas sat quietly for a few moments and then replied:
"So, where y'all from, bitch?"
=]

If I chap your ass, tough shit.

As annoying as the grammatical goofs are such mispronunciations as "preventative" for "preventive" and "mishievious" for mischievous". (Gawwwwd, I hope I spelled all that correctly!!!) They're (there?;their?) so common that I expect Merriam-Webster to alter (altar?) its dictionary to conform to the majority.

BTW, MARIANNE, that was a hilarious joke about the dangling preposition!

One thing that I have noticed is the use of "then" for "than." Is that just on the net or in other places, too?
Woody

Also,

"Home in" OK
"Hone in" not only wrong, but stupid

Hone means to sharpen, you hone something.

you just made yourself look pretty stupid. go to m-w.com and type in "hone in."

Main Entry: hone in
Function: intransitive verb
Etymology: alteration of home in
: to move toward or focus attention on an objective
usage The few commentators who have noticed hone in consider it to be a mistake for home in. It may have arisen from home in by the weakening of the \m\ sound to \n\ or may perhaps simply be due to the influence of hone. Though it seems to have established itself in American English (and mention in a British usage book suggests it is used in British English too), your use of it especially in writing is likely to be called a mistake. Home in or in figurative use zero in does nicely.

yeah. you would be wrong.

I fucked up that tag. my apologies.

Ok Rob, but you forget about to mention the people who say "irregardless, blah blah blah". That annoys the shit out of me.

Tell me though, and don't make fun of me, the difference between affect and effect. I know there is a rule, I even asked the English professor at the college I attend and he gave me some bullshit answer that made no sense and I still don't know.

What is it?

Then there's "general consensus" and "consensus of opinion" courtesy of the Department of Redundancy Department.

What about clichés? They are old-hat and should be avoided like the plague.

Or the old it's / its mess. Or apostrophes in general. Point a browser at AutosTalk in the Detriot News to see this awful misusage.

Then there' sthe short sentence. Or the fragments. Used in advertising. They're annoying. As hell.

:-{)}

Much too late.

I notice the authorities for "hone in" are Mr Paper Lion and Bob Greene. Not quite heavyweight enough to change my opinion.

Another thing I've noticed is that nobody in the blogosphere appears to be aware that the past tense of lead is led--that's why Led Zeppelin is a pun. I see lead used as the past tense. Is it voice interfaces doing this?