What's Your No. 1 Grammar Pet Peeve?

Yes, we do..

Not a peeve exactly, but. . . .

Hi all.
I have a few "pet hates" when it comes to grammar:

People who don't know how to use apostrophes correctly, either not using them when they should or (bizarrely) using them when they are not needed e.g. with plurals.

People who write "your" when they mean "you're" (as in "you are"). I think this is possibly the single most common grammatical error, among people of all ages. Unless anyone can think of a more common one??

People who say "was" instead of "were", e.g. "What was you doing?"

However, the one which annoys me most is "should of" or "would of" instead of "should have" and "would have".

AAARRGGHHH!!!

Miranda x

Those are spelling mistakes, Miranda, not grammar mistakes.

there is no word "irregardless" --- i guess that's my grammar pet peeve

ACtually there is. Its considered a colloquialism and not of good form (sorta like sorta, or aint, or dares'nt)

Oh, I like that one! Makes me feel kind of smug for knowing.

Actually, there is, Oliwek.

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M-W

regardless

Usage Discussion of IRREGARDLESS

Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that “there is no such word.” There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.

Hi JTT.

I disagree! In both those cases, the actual words are in fact spelt correctly.....it is incorrect usage of the word or phrase, which in my book makes these grammatical errors.

What does everyone else think??

Thanks.

Miranda x

People who write "your" when they mean "you're" (as in "you are"). I think this is possibly the single most common grammatical error, among people of all ages.

However, the one which annoys me most is "should of" or "would of" instead of "should have" and "would have".

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Good day, Miranda.

The actual words are misspelled, because the actual words are being used. People just choose the wrong spelling. You've yourself have noted just how common these errors are.

English has strong and weak pronunciations for a number of very common words. You've provided some examples of the more common ones. These mistakes happen to everyone at one time or another, to some more than others.

They happen to all of us all the time when we speak.

Do you think that when people make these slip ups they actually don't understand the grammar? When we write things like, "He shudda"; "she wuddav", we are also writing the sounds we make in speech.

I agree at least with the general possibility of what you say. She used to say things like, "Are you taking the day off, are what?" Now, I didn't realize this till I saw it in print, but it is clearly not a spelling error. She was using are what as some kind of chunk that clearly should have been or what.

Who is "she", Roger?

I suppose I should have put it in quotes and said "Someone".

Now you're going to ask what "it" is?

Nope, there's an antecedent for 'it', Rog.

You're right.

I bought a car off my neighbor.

Would you please just buy it from your neighbor, like everyone else.

Not if your neighbour's wife got so pissed off with her husband that she drove his car smack-bang into him and he was still stuck underneath it when she sold it to you.

And I agree, MirandaB, there is a grammatical difference between 'your' (possessive adjective), and 'you're' or 'you are' (part if the verb 'to be' - ie, I am, you are, he/she is, etc), just as there is between 'of' (preposition) and 'have' (Auxilliary verb used with a past participle to form the present perfect, past perfect tenses indicating completed action.

Misspelling indeed!

JTT wrote

Yes!

There is a word for those kind of mistakes, which I don't remember. Not the obvious word, homonyms.

Those are my main mistakes, heh, that I've observed. Thomas is the one who described them well, on some earlier post.

I don't think they are grammatical errors - I think they happen in the brain before grammar and spurt out of our typing fingers.

Any time I do one of those errors, I've known better from decades of usage.

There is some kind of brain pre-emp, in my view.

You're clearly out of your depth here, Ragnel. These are not grammatical mistakes. They are spelling errors.

Osso's post has proved that you are mistaken.

?? I bought a car my neighbor. ??

It's so damn easy, Roger, to just do the tiniest bit of thinking when it comes to language. You oughta try it sometime.