Grammar Pet Peeves

[colouredlines]

...as does pants for trousers, said by an Irish colleague!

Pants is common in Hiberno-English. It's not an Americanism.

The same goes for "bring" vs "take", which a previous poster claimed was an Americanism.

My biggest grammar pet peeve is people assuming that every piece of dialect that they don't use is an Americanism.

 

[TooFarScone]

When people say indiscrepancy

 

[Django]

Perhaps, but I’m pretty sure I was told all throughout law school not to use “as per”.

Any answer to the second part of my question?

 

[no-no]

When people use squash instead of quash.

 

[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!

 

[varyingborders]

Apologise if this has been mentioned before but people mixing up generally and genuinely annoy me a little too much

 

[Loubywoobywoo]

I just heard 'I runned'
It made me laugh so I RAN here to tell you all!

I have also heard « she grinded out the last pieces of work she had to do in order to graduate », um, no, that would be « ground out »!
In US English, I have seen « The sun/light shined through the window ». Again, no, that would be shone, the only things that can be shined are shoes!

 

[IridescentLipstick]

Does she have dentures? A lady I know does the same and has them.
[/QUOTE]

No, definitely no dentures. Just a faux-posh lady who wants to remind everyone that she's from an affluent area by adopting a plummy accent

 

[maharini]

Towing the line.
Bicycle peddle.

 

[Django]

Reefernce
Psst...proper nouns require a capital letter x

 

[Sickofthissh1t]

People who use "early doors" instead of "early days"!!

 

[RealWelshWitch]

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

I'm guilty of doing that. Especially when I'm really angry.

 

[Scorpihoe]

AS. IF!!!

And not a single comma or full stop!!!

 

[Wish_I_Weren't_Here]

Never heard of this expression before so I looked up both, and it said hanging punctuation is when the punctuation is outside the line of text?! Which apparently often happens when text is justified.

My understanding with punctuation and speech marks is that if it’s to punctuate the flow of the whole sentence it goes outside of the speech marks; if it pertains just to the quoted part, it goes inside. Explains it pretty well here: https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/does-punctuation-go-inside-or-outside-quotation-marks/

No, I know. The climate is changing as far as quotation marks go. But floating punctuation isn't the same as hanging punctuation and American rules aren't the same as British rules.

American rules: Put the period or comma inside the quotation marks if you are using so-called "scare quotes."

To be honest, if America changes our quotation rules I will happily go along with that change. British rules make more sense. But there will still be a bunch of confused Americans getting it wrong.

 

[Pawpaw365]

"He jumped off of the table". The "of" is redundant.

It is redundant but it seems still universally accepted in American English.

 

[WeHadFunRight]

My mother sends me text messages that grate on me in the most unbelievable way. She never used to speak like this but she has picked up these bloody awful lazy language habits it drives me NUTS.

“was you…?” “She don’t normally…”

I cannot stand it, it makes my skin crawl. If I’d tried to speak like that when I was younger she would have smacked me one. Sometimes she says she does it to wind me up - which irritates me even more, but I also don’t quite believe her.

 

[Miscanthus]

I'm sure this has been mentioned before but what's with this latest thing among influencers to say "arrive to"?