Grammar Pet Peeves

[bubbadabut]

People saying fiancé when they mean fiancée and vice versa

I always just say "partner" as I always forget if I'm the é or the ée.

Just had a flyer through from a company offering me a free boiler. Wow, great! Except they've used "effected" instead of "affected", so into the bin it goes.

Kinda like "can I write TO you?", but in America, "can I write you?"

Similarly I've noticed people not using "of" after "a couple".

E.g. "Can I have a couple days off?"

 

[AliceInWanderLost]

Specific and pacific drives me around the bend. They’re two totally different words, spellings, meanings! My husband says pacific when he means specific just to wind me up.

when I see mom instead of mum in the UK. But maybe this is a regional thing?

Very picky I know.
A genuine question - what IS the correct use of ‘myself’? I hate it being used to sound like a smartarse when ‘me’ or ‘I’ is grammatically appropriate but I can’t think of the correct context to use it?

specific and pacific are the WORST. equally, when people say supposably instead of supposedly.

in terms of using "myself", you can use it in sentences where you use "I" - "I made the cake myself!" or "I promised myself I would go to bed earlier" or "I treated myself to a coffee." it's the equivalent of using himself, herself, themselves etc.

 

[Twertle]

I still don’t understand apostrophes (and I’m in my mid 30’s)

Someone please teach me….. ?

An apostrophe is when your connecting two words the apostrophe goes where the missing letter is e.g has not - hasn’t.

I’m not sure if this has been mentioned I haven’t read through the whole thread but I’ve seen this three times this morning ‘generally’ instead of ‘genuinely’ two different words with totally different meanings

 

[Lurkerlurker2019]

I'm seeing more and English people using the word 'Mom'. Several people I know say it when referring to their Mum and they're the most Northern people I know why?!

 

[TapToBoreMeRigid]

They are Americanisms and they're finding their way here.

 

[scot_nursey003]

Practice/practise
Affect/effect
Your/you’re
The grocer’s apostrophe is my biggest pet peeve though.

 

[Rosie34567-2]

If we want to be pedantic you're missing hyphens in the first one, should be my 10-month-old child

touché

 

[Greenandgold]

When people say "an historic" rather than "a historic". Newsreaders do it all the time. The "h" of historic is pronounced as a consonant sound, so it should be preceded by "a", rather than words like "hour", "honour", "heir", which should be preceded by "an" due to starting with a vowel sound.

This. I cannot stand this and it's everywhere.

 

[Curly Top]

That sounds like quite a London / Essex thing?

Spot on. I'm in the Towie triangle - Loughton, Chigwell and Woodford.

 

[emm]

THIS. the irrational anger is real! i genuinely don't understand how people don't realise that by messing up the phrase, they are saying the exact opposite of what they are trying to say! "i could care less!" - you very much COULD care less, meaning it is a situation/issue you DO care about.

there are SO many phrases where people do this, there is a true crime podcast I listen to by a couple of american women and they make mistakes like this ALL the time. Unless you are a nonnative speaker mistakes like this are ridiculous

 

[ClockworkDolly]

I have been reading a few threads today and some of them I've had to stop reading, because I was so irritated by the amount of times people have said 'could of / should of / would of'. I don't know why this bothers me so much, but just wondered if anyone else has any particular grammar pet peeves?! So that we can be old and grumpy together haha!

It drives me up the wall, but what can you do? No point challenging them, you get a shit load of abuse for your effort.

Facebook is the worst place to see it.

The latest ones are people getting WERE and WHERE mixed up.

WOMAN and WOMEN were bad enough, now we have something else to cause rage!

Grammar’s not my strong point so I’m a bit of a hypocrite but I keep seeing people write seen rather than saw I.e. ‘I seen this on TV’ or ‘I seen her’.

Af first I thought maybe just a typo but I’m seeing it regularly now and it’s so bizarre and annoying. As if you’d even say that in real life let alone write it?

That usually reflects the way they speak.

I was sat. Hate this. It's I was sitting.

Where I live a lot of people say "You was there" not "you were there." After 20 years in the area it still grates.

Sounds like south Essex.

Lack of punctuation is a big one for me. These are the same people likely to go on a Facebook rant without using one comma, and to me it feels like they are running out of breath!

If only they would.

 

[judgejohndeed]

Mine is when people mix up brought and bought.

 

[Al Fresco]

Surely that's wrong

He didn’t mean literally only those two things, it was his funny way of reminding us of the correct context.

 

[Melian]

They were still teaching this in the 90s haha

We were told the same thing for GCSEs in the mid 2000s

 

[AliceInWanderLost]

Perfect for Family Sunday's (as someone on my FB posted the other day)

the absolute shame of turning up to a previous job in a bookshop, and noticing that another employee had attached a sign to the window reading "now open on Sunday's!" - obvs torn down immediately! urgh.

 

[AliceInWanderLost]

Christmas at the Hobson's

Christmas at the Hobson is what?

urgh, it irritates me when people do that in reefernce to their family in Christmas cards! "happy Christmas from the Jefferson's x" or whatever. the jefferson is WHAT?!

 

[Milktray]

My mother-in-law writes sooh instead of so.

 

[princessmaire80]

‘Isn’t it’ like ‘innit’ It drives me mad! Even my old consultant used to say that (English wasn’t his first language but you would expect a highly qualified doctor not to speak in slang to their patients)

 

[tootootoot]

Even worse, chester draws

Don't do this to me

 

[Gloria Rostron]

A genuine question - what IS the correct use of ‘myself’? I hate it being used to sound like a smartarse when ‘me’ or ‘I’ is grammatically appropriate but I can’t think of the correct context to use it?

Do you like the carrot cake? I made it myself.