What's Your No. 1 Grammar Pet Peeve?

farmerman, I have this friend? And, she, like, does a thing, y'know? Where she's Hamlet? Y'know, like in the play? Only, it's Hamlet-as-Airhead? The, what is it? Soliloquy? Yeah. What was the question?

Has anybody said, "nook-yuh-ler"?

How about "loosing" or "looser" when it's "losing" and "loser"? (I know, that's just spelling, but I see it all the time...)

Covered those? Damn...

How about two, to, and too? Has everyone a clear understanding of the difference, and the appropriate usage?

"Hypocrisy"? (Spelling again, I know, but there have been waaaay too many creative attempts at it...)

I think that may cover some of the more immediate peeves for me...

"Nya". So which is it, no or yeah?
If you're going to grunt at least throw in a head nod or a hand wave!


Affect vs. effect.


Never try to explain "bass relief" to a fisherman.
They don't understand.


Gratuitous and perfunctory elocutions of obfuscated expressionalism, not withstanding as of yet, such mitigating and persuasive bovine excrement.

Well, I DO have one that really annoys me. It is :

'Eck cetera' ... I hear it all the time, it drives me nuts.

One SHOULD say:

ET cetera
(and) (so forth)

Am on page seven now, so I haven't seen responses to Farmer's talk on upspeak and like, and, you know. I watched in horror and sympathy as my ex went through a you know period, it is like a virus, it takes over your mind. He was much brighter than that and stopped it. But I see the power of routine phrasing from that experience.

I myself have vestigial usage of eh? from a priest who came to lecture about what I don't remember, mostly our chastity...he wasn't so dumb, but it was 1958, and his lecture gave us no leeway. Except that I didn't feel as bludgeoned in his talk as others. And was it he or another who said what, mid sentence, a lot?

Decades later, having heard that guy for possibly three hours total, I still, once in a while say eh? and what?

Dupre, I am listening. You need to be heard back, things don't work with all from one or the other side. Yes for a while, but the whole needs to shift to get your input. Not just to be nice, but that both sides talking actually improves things, if people rest a bit and listen.

j/osso

Tautology = repeating something needlessly in a statement.

To me it means that their thought patterns have looped back on themselves. They can be irritating or be absolute howlers.

Irritating, might be 'unmarried batchelors'.

or some-one getting a little too technical:



But for some reason sports attracts the best of them:



Even the smart amd famous:

In the grammar department, I'm not a fan of He don't, she don't, it don't. Gag.

In the writing department, I don't like to see ellipses (the three dots) where a dash belongs. Ellipses are there to suggest that something is missing. A dash suggests a pause. Aaah. It feels good to get this out of my system.

In the speaking department, I have little patience for people who are determined to tell you of the most minute details--details I'm not interested in and don't need to know. For example, my friend's husband told me that his brother's cat had seven kittens. He spent the next five to ten minutes trying to remember and tell me their names and which kitten went with which name. Life is too short for this.

jjorge

Nearly 20% of US-Americans pronounce 'et cetera' like
eksetera (4 syllables)(14.68%) or eksetra (3 syllables) (5.99%)!
Dialect Survey: et cetera

Hmmm only 20%?

Well, they've got me surrounded and follow me everywhere I go!

Maybe I'm just in an eksetera bubble and if I can only break out of it I'll find all those nice et cetera people.

I don't like to hear people say et cetera at all while speaking, but if they do, then I'd prefer they quote Yul Brynner from The King and I, "Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera."

Walter, when I was learning German, we translated etc. as "u.s.w." or "und so weiter." Would you say that Germans use that often?

Both is in use (you don't say "usw", of course).

Depends on the situation ... - and whoc is actually talking resp. adressed, I think.

Ahhh, and no periods after each letter, eh? In the German version of The King and I, do you know if usw or etc. is used?

It isn't a grammar problem, but I detest hearing newscasters say that "so-and-so" pleaded innocent to charges. No one ever pleads innocent. You plead guilty or not guilty (or no contest/nolo contendere); but NOT innocent.

You've covered many peeves of mine here, but I have another to add to our growing list.

I cringe when I hear "the reason why" (or worse "the reason why is because...") - I know it's just redundancy, not technically a grammar issue, but it makes me a little crazy.

Piffka

Correctly it should be "usw." (My fault, sorry)

I don't knowe about 'The King and I" - but as a guess, I think, it would be 'und so weiter'. ('et cetera' sounds too "intellectual" for most).

How about advertising that says, "Everything you want in a XXXXX, and MORE."

What is MORE than everything I want? Something that I don't want.

I'm not the greatest at grammar when speaking or writing, (a little dyslexic) but I know bad grammar when I hear it. I took the previously mentioned test and got them all right!

http://encarta.msn.com/quiz/QuizResults.asp?QuizID=51

One of the questions mentioned my pet peeve:

Wrong: There's two ways to get there.........

"There are two ways to get there from here?my way and the wrong way."

This is used so much now, I was seriously beginning to think I was wrong!

Here's another. Not exactly grammar, but have you noticed when "everyday people" are being interviewed lately the word female is used instead of woman or girl? This happens on the news and on "Jerry Springer" style shows. For instance "that FEMALE over there" or "She's a beautiful, hot looking FEMALE" . I wish I could think of a better example..

It seems so animalistic.

I think they get it from the penal system. "Our suspect is a 20 year old white FEMALE"!

Please excuse my grammar and punctuation. I'm just an "every day person" not a scholar!

Ah! It feels so good to hear you guys vent. I feel like I'm bingeing on Godiva chocolates! I feel so affirmed.

Thank you.