Grammatical Pet Peeves

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All of these things and more bother me greatly. What really bothers me is that every generation seems to speak English less fluently than the one before it. I have often wondered if this is true in other languages, or even other English speaking countries, or is it just us Americans?

I have to admit to ending sentences with prepositions WAY too much. I'll try to do that less. But the "good/well" problem REALLY upsets me. I don't think people mix them up at all. They just don't want to use "well" for anything besides filler.

Ugh...the nauseous/nauseating thing annoys me to no end. I feel like screaming when my in-laws say it.

I hate it when people use apostrophes to pluralize a word. I ask them, "Would you say it's raining dog's and cat's?" and they usually say yes.

Also when adjectives and adverbs are confused. "I did that quickly" is much better than "I did that quick" or "I did that fast". I think fast should be used like "He is a fast runner."

My biggest pet peeve is the misuse of the word "insure" when the correct term is "ensure."

Ensure means to make sure, certain, or safe.

Insure means to provide or obtain insurance on or for.

Common usage has given "insure" the same meaning as "ensure," but it isn't really right, and it drives me crazy!

Mispronunciations and misspellings bother me immensely. Misused punctuation; the wrong there, their, they're/ your, you're; mixing up adverbs and adjectives; all of these bother me much more than they should.
Sometimes abbreviations ruin my day, for no apparent reason, simply by their blunt awkwardness; they seem embarrasing.
I work at a clinic, and the other day someone at a sister facility said, "fax me the prenatal." All I could think was, "prenatal what? I cannot fax an adjective."
Also, since so much of my brain's energy is taken up by what I know logically to be not the most important thing on earth, I get paranoid about making an error myself.

im the kind of guy who does not give a f**k about grammar or anything having to do with it... as long as i can understand it i dont give a f**k

INFER FROM/IMPLY TOWARD...

People who don't know or don't use the certain past subjunctive forms. "I wish I would have married him" instead of "I wish I had married him."

Last edited by beautifulspam on 08 Dec 2007, 6:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Totally. I once wrote a paper for a history of english class showing that the split infinitive has a 400 year history.

What has happened to the hyphen? I find it jarring to read phrases written by those too busy to hit the - key language manglers. They train wreck the sentence in my inner ear. Can't they feel the loss of cadence?

Another one that drive me up the wall is "I could care less" when they mean the exact opposite. Worse than the double negative.

My wife is alarmed by this because she knows our language reflects our ability to think, and she sees the abandoning of grammar as yet another sign of the dumbing down of our culture.

dp

These are the most annoying grammtical pet peeves, out of all the ones mentioned, as well (I am also an Englsih major .

What about twice as low?(What is that? 50%?) Or two times larger?(Do they mean twice as much, or three times as much?)

LOL. The other day I saw the incredibly ambiguous "99% less than" printed in a newspaper article. (???)

Oh, to hear or read the proper use of the verb "to lie" in the correct context. It's a nearly-lost word usage.

"He was laying on the ground."

Ugh.

And I've heard "I was lying the book on the on the table."

Also: "Her and I went to dinner." "They gave the party for she and I."

I think I even make te lying/laying mistake in GERMAN!! !! ! I AM working on my German grammer, and will be working to improve THIS in English as well. But the other one? YIKES! I HATE THAT!! !!

They got the computers for she and I!?!?!? Do they know how stupid that sounds?

They got the computers for I?
They got the computers for She?

YIKES!

My mother was an English teacher! I would probably speak better if I wasn't exposed to such bad grammer every day. It is surprising I speak as well as I do. I met 3 teenagers in Europe(danish) that were reluctant to speak English. Tey tought they spoke poorly, and I told them THEY spoke better than most Americans I know.

BTW Did you know that Jeff Fox Worthy has a new book?

http://www.amazon.com/Jeff-Foxworthys-R ... 0345498488

Te subtitle is:

Learning to Talk More Gooder Fastly

He is making a LOT of money poking fun at the degredation of society!

American spelling.
'color' 'honor' 'esophagus' 'aluminum'

Anyways/anyway

While/whilst (I know this doesn't make much difference any more, but it still annoys me.)