Grammar Pet Peeves

[Wish_I_Weren't_Here]

Hey, I'm old and cranky. I'll join in.

I think the most common pet peeve I see is people who use quotation marks and then add the comma or period, leaving it floating. I never met a teacher who wasn't driven crazy by "floating punctuation."

This seems to be the biggest problem when using scare quotes. I know some might argue with me on this, and British quotations often leave punctuation floating. Too many Americans are ignorant though, not suddenly British.

Funnily enough, I tried to search for a few examples of improper quotation marks and only came up with this question:

I searched on the Internet what "floating punctuation" means but found absolutely nothing and when I enable it, I cannot see any changes through the text except for the number of pages.

But the funny part was the reply:

I've never heard of "floating punctuation", but I wonder whether it might mean "hanging punctuation".

I have to admit, I don't know if the original "floating punctuation" question had anything to do with what I mean, or if it was more of a programming issue. However, the reply having TWO EXAMPLES of incorrect quotations made me laugh.

When people seem really confused, I've even seen punctuation used before and after the quote: "What time is it?".


And finally, probably my biggest pet peeve right now, those who don't know the meaning of concerning. Language is constantly changing, yada, yada, yada, but that's my nails down a chalkboard moment.

I'd like for us to collectively slow down on the race to ignorance. On the other hand, I also wonder how many mistakes I made in just this one post. You live, you learn.

 

[AliceInWanderLost]

Super Nanny was fab at terrible grammar. Remember "asseptable"? There was that really difficult girl yelling at her "It's ACCEPTABLE not asseptable"

that is UNASSEPTABLE!

 

[Pawpaw365]

On the forum list , there is an Instagramer category. Shouldn't it be instagrammer? My phone kept auto- correcting this post.

Yea it should

 

[bubbadabut]

Noooo. Commas should be where you take a breath in a sentence. So if you said ‘she likes dogs, cats, hamsters and gerbils’. And then read it again with a comma after hamsters it reads totally differently!

Have to disagree For me, there's no ambiguity in that sentence at all. Most people would understand that you mean four different types of animals. The "and" is suffice, so no need for the Oxford comma.

 

[Pawpaw365]

A couple of words I remember that I don't feel are words or if they are, are too clunky.
One is "anxiousness" ... Surely it is just "I was full of anxiety". Also "comfortability" ... Isn't comfort or comfortable sufficient? Eg. "I think the settee was very comfortable" and not "The settee had comfortability". Comfortability is coming up on predictive text though.

I think anxiousness and anxiety are important, as anxiety is a condition where anxiousness is a natural feeling that we all experience. I agree though that it feels kinda clunky!

I’ve seen so much lately ‘I seen’

 

[FoxyBingo]

Also, people who litter their texts with needless exclamation marks, thereby lessening its impact. Or those who use it excessively, like this!!!!!!!!

Agreed, less is more!

 

[MaineCoonMama]

I’ve mentioned this before but apparently this has something to do with Afrikaans language?


This is total MySpace era haha. It was everywhere.

Really? One of my friends is South African, she speaks Afrikaans so I might ask her about it. I've never heard her say it though.

 

[emm]

I saw "more than lightly" today on a post on Mumsnet.

As in it was more than likely.

There is a podcast I listen to by two american women and they CONSTANTLY make mistakes like this, it is enfuriating!

 

[Loubywoobywoo]

I’ve thought of another one! People who use sink when they mean washbasin! A sink is where you do your washing up, in the kitchen, and a washbasin is where you wash your face, brush your teeth etc and is in a bathroom!

 

[dm2022]

Your / you’re
There / their / they’re
Where / were

But my biggest one

Random CaPiTAlisation. Not just the random letters, but also incorrect capitalisation of words.

These first ones ugh

See it on Twitter all the time

 

[emm]

"On Christmas" and "on the weekend".

I say "at Christmas" and "at the weekend".

Am I wrong? Am I unjustified in my loathing?

On Christmas technically means just the 25th of December I.e. Christmas day as opposed to the whole Xmas period and on the weekend is American English, it annoys me how it is becoming increasingly used in the UK

 

[Pawpaw365]

Not exactly grammar but…DOMANOSE

AS. IF!!!

 

[Pawpaw365]

I received an email from someone at work this week that included ‘no-one’, ‘thank-you’ and ‘defiantly’. ARGHH

 

[Happy Lady]

It's exactly that it's a possessive apostrophe rather than an apostrophe to denote a missing letter


I disagree. If my surname was Smith. And your talking about my house, it's the Smith's house. I.e. the house belonging the the Smith's

If you said "the Smiths house" that would be grammatically incorrect.

Therefore "Christmas at the Smith's" is grammatical correct.

Ahem. First of all your should be you're (you are). You are incorrect with the rest. The apostrophe between Smith and s indicates the word IS, ie something that Mr Smith or his family would be doing. Where are say "Christmas at the Smith's" would therefore read "Christmas with the Smith is" which doesn't make any sense.

 

[Pawpaw365]

It bugs me so much I actually started casually dropping into conversation that the correct number of dots is either three or five (my personal preference is three) and that other variations are not correct grammar. Disappointingly nobody else seemed particularly interested

Are there circumstances where three would be more appropriate than five and vice versa?

 

[DozyDora]

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?

 

[shhh2468]

Month instead of Months, when referring to a childs age.

it gives me the ick

 

[Scorpihoe]

yes! how on earth could you guess? i listened to it today and she made a mistake with a very basic verb as well I don't know why I put myself through it sometimes

Because it annoys the shit out of me too I just wanna listen to the case god damn and I can’t concentrate because of all the grammatical errors

 

[Pawpaw365]

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

What’s the grocer’s apostrophe?!

People getting to/too wrong

 

[mozzarellagirl]

omg, in that new bank ad with David Tenant doing the voiceover, one of the women says, "Why does my card have no numbers on it?"

you really couldn't have worded that ANY better? ...for a bank with 56 million or whatever customers in the US? (i've seen the advert so many times lol it's clearly done its job)