Irritating Inaccuracies

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Actually you might be right. I'm sure I read it in a dictionary once under the definition of hypercorrection.

I think of hypercorrection more along the lines of people who pick at others over dangling prepositions and split infinitives. These are not truly grammatical errors and both are found in the greatest writers, including Shakespeare. They were made "illegal" by a sub-set of prescriptive grammarians in the 19th century. The idea was that Latin is a higher and more perfect language and thus English should follow the rules of Latin. Since dangling prepositions and split infinitives are impossible in Latin, a few scholars decided that they should be forbidden in English as well.

Thus dangling prepositions are only grammatically incorrect when they are redundant (e.g. "Where are you at?" is incorrect because "Where are you?" suffices but "What are you looking for?" is grammatically correct.) And split infinitives are correct so long as they don't create ambiguities.

So if someone tries to correct a properly used dangling preposition or split infinitive, they are hypercorrecting.

Or if someone says "Harry and I went to the pub." and someone else corrects them, saying "Harry and me went to the pub." they are hypercorrecting.

I lived for a long time in Richmond VA and every Spring they have the "Easter Parade" where most of Monument Avenue is blocked off from traffic so every one can walk up and down and in tradition show off their new Easter hats. I would cringe every year and rant because that's not a parade; it's a promenade.

I get irritated when people get their zoology wrong. I once gave an entire lecture to someone who said that an aardvark is a kind of anteater.

"Harry and I went to the pub," is grammatically correct, but I eventually gave up correcting anyone, no matter how tempted, as people tend to become quite annoyed and don't find it helpful at all. Imagine that...

I'm the same way. But if a facebook friend asks a grammar question I'll always answer. Sometimes they ask a tricky question that needs several paragraphs to answer but fortunately I seem to have collected a group of facebook friends who really *like* my long grammar answers. What an amazing thing that is. I am so thrilled to have found online friends like that!

You have no idea how many times I've given this exact speech. Often internally, because most people don't appreciate a grammar nerd, but I've found a few who find it interesting. My favorite course in college was history of the English language.

Yep, in the sentence above, "Harry and I" is correct. But the example I hear all the time is something like, "Mary gave the food to Harry and I". People seem to think that you are supposed to use "I" every time after the word "and". Argh.

JSB

I used to live in the Midwest where everyone said "take me with"
Actually the term "Midwest" is misleading....mid of what? West of what? The OP should watch some of Gallagher's stand up routines (even though I have seen him sit down and even lay down). He typically does a skit about sayings and words that make no sense like...."Why do we drive on the parkway and park on the driveway?"

Those aren't inaccuracies, just bad use of punctuation.

"twenty four seven" is a short hand phrase for "Twenty four hours a day, 7 days a week". I can't recall ever seeing it written, actually. If I had, I didn't take notice of how it was written. But, if it's written 24/7, it's people attempted to write down the phrase in their head, and not realizing it that how they wrote it it could read as a fraction, "twenty four sevenths".

And "Queens Head" is simply leaving out an apostrophe. Not inaccurate, just poor writing down of a phrase that works just fine and says what it means, "Queen's Head" = "the head of the queen".

Written language is a representation of spoken language. And occasionally a phrase that works just fine is written down with poor punctuation and spelling.

There are so many grammatical errors that bother me!

Some are clearly wrong, such as:

1) the use of the word, "verbal," when the correct word is, "oral." Verbal means rendered in words; oral means spoken aloud. So, a contract written in words is a, "verbal contract," while a contract not written is properly called an, "oral contract."

2) the use of the third person plural pronoun as a neuter third person singular. It is entirely possible to write a grammatically accurate sentence in the plural, to justify the use of, "they," (or one of its inflections.) Similarly, it is possible to write in the singular number and still use constructs like, "he or she (as the case may be)," to correctly allow for the inclusion of either female or male persons.

3) the inaccurate use of homophones. "it's," and, "its;" "there," "their," and "they're" are particular examples.

4) the inaccurate use of adjectival and adverbial forms. "I feel badly," refers to the speaker's capacity to feel. "I feel bad," refers to the speaker's emotional or physical state.

5) the use of the word, "gender," when the correct word is, "sex." As I say to my friends, "nouns have gender, people have sex!" Correctly, gender is uniquely a characteristic of grammar.

6) the misuse of words that are close in meaning. Typical examples are, "may," and, "can," "less," and, "fewer."

Others are the subject of debate:

7) the use of the objective case after the copula (e.g. "It is I," versus, "It is me.") I am firmly in the camp that says that the subject completion must be in the nominative case ("it is I.")

8 ) modification of the word, "unique." Unless someone subscibes to the view that the word can mean, "unusual," a thing either is unique or is not. It cannot be, "somewhat unique," or--even worse--"very unique."

9) the Oxford comma (e.g. "Bacon, eggs, and ham," as opposed to, "bacon, eggs and ham.") I do not use the Oxford comma, but I recognize that there is significant debate about its use.

Whilst others are just annoying neologism. Chief amongst them is the execrable, "chillax."

I know! ATM machine is another example.

Here in Australia there is car adverts on TV advertising SIDI Direct Injection. SIDI stands for Spark Ignition Direct Injection. So what they are really calling it is Spark Ignition Direct Injection Direct Injection. It s even a permanent badge on the cars! Needless to say I wont be buying one.
So annoying!

Poor spelling and poor grammar annoy me. One that I see frequently is "strictly" spelled "strickly". Usually this is on an improvised "Strictly No Parking" sign.

Improper use of the apostrophe bugs me a bit, as does people confusing "your" and "you're". Similarly, I wish for the whole English speaking world to understand that "their", "there" and "they're" are all different words.

I also have little tolerance for buzz words and phrases:
"Cheers" instead of "Thank you"
"Utilize" instead of "use"
"Going forward" instead of "from now on"

Finally, there is "actually". Ask any young shop assistant any question, either in person or on the telephone, and the answer is almost always preceded with "actually".

I've used the Oxford comma ever since the day I was shown an example of a sentence that became ambiguous without it. I greatly dislike ambiguity in language.



I was once browsing through my university's web site and found a page with the word "relaxulate" on it. That did not inspire confidence in my university's ability to impart a quality education.

Adding to the general list of pet peeves:

It bothers me when people use the word "penultimate" to mean "the greatest ever."

It bothers me when people write "viola" instead of "voila." It bothers me even more when they write "wallah."

It bothers me when people say they are weary of something when they mean to say they are wary of it.

Ah! Viola!

It may become unnecessarily cumbersome and redundant for one to give option to both genders in his or her writing when he or she has something to say which requires multiple uses of a pronoun in his or her writing.


Technically it is also a psychological characteristic where one may physically be a male while mentally being female or vice versa.


As punctuation is simply used to divide words as they would be spoken, the Oxford comma is more accurate. One would not pause after the first word(s) in a list then add the last two without doing so, think of if an ellipsis were used in its place "Bacon... eggs... and ham" or "Bacon... eggs and ham."



Would you mind providing us with some of these? I would very much like to read them.

Some common mistakes that irk me;
"labtop" I know too many people that both spell and pronounce it that way.
Unnecessary Capitalization Of Every First Letter Of A Sentence As If It Were Some Kind Of Title.
Capitalization of articles in titles.
RAS Syndrome
Hot water heater and other redundancies.
People that ask if I can do something rather than if I will or am willing to.
Improper pluralization... Mongeese anyone? (Though that one does confuse me slightly...)
I'm sure there are others I can't think of at the moment...