What are your pet peeves re English usage?

Extremely coincidentally, my grammars name was Faith.

my next post, i decided to retract; i'll let you guess.......

Aww, Bo, don't retract your post on account of me, that could be unhealthy.

[oh, the 'i'm' 'bare' 'ass' 'meant' of it!]

Let me add as an aside that Roberta has explained previously that, at least in New York City, newspapers are not using the serial comma and many magazines and books are. I prefer to use the serial comma myself. I was taught not to use it in my classes, and for years have brazenly used it anyway. It turns out that I am in some good company.


People posting on this topic may enjoy this clip of an editorial in today's New York Times:


The Elements of Common Sense
By JOHN ROSENTHAL

Published: May 3, 2004


SANTA MONICA, Calif. ?- Pity the poor greengrocer. He leaves his native country in hopes of building a better life for his family, struggles to learn a new language with an alien alphabet, saves up enough money to buy a produce stand and works 16-hour days to make ends meet.

But thanks to Lynne Truss's best seller, "Eats, Shoots & Leaves," which implores readers to "be a nuisance . . . and if possible use a bright red pen" whenever they spot errant apostrophes, if this hard-working immigrant makes a sign for "carrot's," some fussbudget will now be emboldened to correct his punctuation, even though the sign's meaning is perfectly obvious.

Poor punctuation is not limited to those who lack education or language ability. People with master's degrees in English still sometimes confuse "its" and "it's," which should remind us that the rules of punctuation can be as hard to remember as the Pythagorean theorem. And at times, they are downright arbitrary.

Consider this sentence, from this very page on April 11: "A mystery is solved, a work of fiction is set free." Although the meaning is clear, sticklers object that the sentence is a comma splice, because it contains two complete thoughts separated only by a comma. For it to be "correct," the comma should be replaced by a semicolon or followed by a conjunction.

Even more confounding, had the sentence read "a mystery is solved, a work of fiction is set free and children worldwide rejoice," the comma would be unobjectionable, because the sentence would then be a list. In this case, the punctuation police would merely argue over whether a second comma, after the word "free," was required. The Times abhors such serial commas, while The New Yorker adores them.

That professional writers routinely flout the rules of punctuation with impunity further muddies the situation. That they do so knowingly (one hopes) matters not, since readers who don't know the difference may simply consider it good writing because they see it in print.

When The Times opts for CD's rather than CDs, it's considered house style. But if a shopkeeper mislays an apostrophe, the kind of people who worry about whether anal-retentive has a hyphen are quick to criticize. Cormac McCarthy seems allergic to most forms of punctuation, but his run-on sentences won him a National Book Award. If less-heralded writers forget a question mark, however, sticklers pounce. John Updike and José Saramago have license to splice commas at will; the rest of us are expected to mind our semicolons, lest we be branded illiterate.

In her book, Ms. Truss claims there are a staggering 17 rules of use for the comma alone, "some of which are beyond explanation by top grammarians." Yet still no amount of punctuation would be sufficient to clarify this sentence: "Read John Arthur's explanation." The surest way to distinguish the intended meaning ("read Arthur's explanation to John") from a confusing one ("Read the explanation from John Arthur") is not with punctuation, but by rewriting it altogether.

That's the point of punctuation: not to spin a web of arcane rules, but to remind us to write (and think) clearly. It's obvious that force-feeding the rules of punctuation isn't working. Therefore I suggest a more tolerant approach.

The question that readers and editors should ask is not whether the punctuation violates the rules, but whether the meaning is clear. Is anybody addled by the film title "Two Weeks Notice?" Have you ever seen "dont" without an apostrophe, and wondered what the author meant? Of course not.

I'm not advocating punctuation anarchy. Punctuation that serves to eliminate confusion is as imperative today as ever. But as the language evolves we should put the most picayune punctuation rules out to pasture, the way we do with obsolete rules of grammar.

Years ago, splitting infinitives was verboten. Today, even grammarians can't muster a persuasive argument against it. Indeed, when students ask for an example of a split infinitive, their teachers are likely to cite the one from "Star Trek" ("to boldly go . . . "), which by now seems so natural that to say it any other way would sound stilted. With enough tolerance, who knows what lurks on punctuation's final frontier? Some day we may even regard isn't (with an apostrophe) as quaint as to-day seems today.

John Rosenthal is the executive editor of The New York Times Almanac.

Osso, That was a mouth-full.

Wow, I, can't, believe, there, are, seventeen, uses, for, the, simple, humble, somewhat, sperm-like, looking, but, necessary, comma.

Please excuse my stutter.

Sounded like straight talk to me. LOL

I liked the article. I have a long time interest in the byways of grammar, but I am a bit uncomfortable with people, myself or others, being highly irritated by grammatical errors. Not everyone has had the benefits of excellent classes or a facility in them if they were lucky enough to have the classes. I have an interest in word play too, so am a little uncomfortable with the rigidity that many of us grammar fans seem to have. Puppies, for example, is used in a rather fetching (now there's an old adjective) metaphoric way in the earlier examples, and I like seeing new metaphors show up.

I must add that I might be on a grammar warpath myself if I spent much time watching tv.

Fine article, Osso. I agree with the writer wholeheartedly (except when it comes to apostrophes ). Thank you for sharing it.

Hi, MA, how're you doin'? She says, while flinging apostrophes here and there.

Doin' jist fine, Osso. <waving wild apostrophes in the air>

Catching all the dots with her mitt...

you've been quiet lately, miss you around here.

My peeves are not grammatical. As long as I understand the writer's message. But there are some usages that get me down. In business and academia there's an excessive use of "excellence" and "cutting edge", most often used to hypocritically express high standards and achievements that simply are not there.
I'm finally getting used to young waiters addressing me and my wife as "you guys". I know they mean well, but I sometimes take them aside and advise them that, if it matters, old timers prefer to be addressed as"you folks."
Also, I hate the misuse of "impact" as a verb. As a verb, it should only be used for actual collisions, e.g., the meteor will impact in five minutes. The weather will have a negative impact (noun) on the festivities; not The weather will impact (verb) the.... As a verb, "affect" is usually best, e.g., The weather will affect the... festivities.... Wine usually affects me positively. And it is due to laziness that we confuse effect (noun) with affect (verb).
I know. I'm an old fogey. Usage is just a matter of convention, not God given.

When did "have no" and "are no" become acceptable? When did "haven't any" and "aren't any" become archaic ? Am I archaic?

I have no qualms about "haven't any." And you aren't any more archaic than I am, Maya, so there are no objections to your pet peeve.

That's an interesting one. I would freely use any of these, and have no qualms about it. I haven't any problems with that.

Clazza, where are you on this one?

"I have no bananas." Similar to "I have four bananas." Similar to "I possess no bananas."

"I haven't any bananas." This sentence uses a contraction to shorten "I have not any bananas" - which doesn't sound mellifluous, but I am not sure it is grammatically incorrect. I'd rather see "I do not have any bananas." (or don't)

Could one say "I haven't bananas", as one could say "I haven't courage"? In the case of a physical object such as a piece of fruit, it sounds better to me to use a modifier in front of the object.
Well, I await Clary...

"There are no bananas on the table."
"There aren't bananas on the table."
"There are not", I say insistently, "bananas on the table."
"There aren't any bananas on the table."
These last four sentences are ok to me.