Grammar, Spelling and Usage Peeves

[Rhea]

Have a peeve? Air it here!

 

[bilby]

The use of plural forms as though they were singular.

"The disease is caused by a bacteria". "Radio is his favourite media".

 

[Angry Floof]

My biggest peeve on this topic is the mindless shaming of grammatical or spelling errors in other people's posts on the internet. Communication is light years more important than rules, but some people are oblivious to that I guess because they're too enamored by the sweet gush of microscopic self-righteous superiority complex gratification.

Present company excluded, of course.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You have can v may... but then might v may. *explodes*

Meanwhile, my daughter is learning to read words... and when I typed read you instantly understood it as it sounding like 'reed' and not 'red' because... the fucking English language sucks and there are no rules!

 

[bilby]

My biggest peeve on this topic is the mindless shaming of grammatical or spelling errors in other people's posts on the internet. Communication is light years more important than rules, but some people are oblivious to that I guess because they're too enamored by the sweet gush of microscopic self-righteous superiority complex gratification.

Present company excluded, of course.

You need a comma between 'guess' and 'because'.

 

[Angry Floof]

My biggest peeve on this topic is the mindless shaming of grammatical or spelling errors in other people's posts on the internet. Communication is light years more important than rules, but some people are oblivious to that I guess because they're too enamored by the sweet gush of microscopic self-righteous superiority complex gratification.

Present company excluded, of course.

You need a comma between 'guess' and 'because'.

 

[bilby]

My biggest peeve on this topic is the mindless shaming of grammatical or spelling errors in other people's posts on the internet. Communication is light years more important than rules, but some people are oblivious to that I guess because they're too enamored by the sweet gush of microscopic self-righteous superiority complex gratification.

Present company excluded, of course.

You need a comma between 'guess' and 'because'.

I agree that communication is the main thing when dealing with non-professional communicators. As long as their errors are not sufficiently serious as to obscure or confuse their meaning, it is pointless to make a big fuss about them, and counterproductive to lead the conversation into the mire of grammar pedantry, and away from the actual topic.

However I don't give the same courtesy to people who are paid to communicate. Newsreaders and professional journalists are employed to use language, and if they can't do so correctly, then they should give their job to someone who can.

And of course I reserve the right to go joyfully into the mire of grammar pedantry when I have little interest in the topic at hand. After all, the Internet is there to entertain me, is it not?

I am highly aware of the irony of the fact that we are discussing the value (or otherwise) of correcting grammar, spelling, and usage peeves in a thread that is, as far as I understand, intended for ranting about them - and as such is the sole forum in which such rants are preferred over debate and discourse. It's like herding cats.

 

[Tigers!]

My biggest peeve on this topic is the mindless shaming of grammatical or spelling errors in other people's posts on the internet. Communication is light years more important than rules, but some people are oblivious to that I guess because they're too enamored by the sweet gush of microscopic self-righteous superiority complex gratification.

Present company naturally excluded, of course.

FIFY

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American spelling and grammar

 

[Angry Floof]

I agree that communication is the main thing when dealing with non-professional communicators. As long as their errors are not sufficiently serious as to obscure or confuse their meaning, it is pointless to make a big fuss about them, and counterproductive to lead the conversation into the mire of grammar pedantry, and away from the actual topic.

However I don't give the same courtesy to people who are paid to communicate. Newsreaders and professional journalists are employed to use language, and if they can't do so correctly, then they should give their job to someone who can.

And of course I reserve the right to go joyfully into the mire of grammar pedantry when I have little interest in the topic at hand. After all, the Internet is there to entertain me, is it not?

I am highly aware of the irony of the fact that we are discussing the value (or otherwise) of correcting grammar, spelling, and usage peeves in a thread that is, as far as I understand, intended for ranting about them - and as such is the sole forum in which such rants are preferred over debate and discourse. It's like herding cats.

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Just found this on my laptop.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Have a peeve? Air it here!

Ah, come on, you can't possibly complain! Stop right there, please!

English is so very easy, you want to cry if you're French. Perhaps too easy, but you can't ask for everything and then some.

Go complain about the intricacies of most foreign languages!
EB

 

[PyramidHead]

The use of plural forms as though they were singular.

"The disease is caused by a bacteria". "Radio is his favourite media".

There is a strange trend in the biological lab sciences. As people get more savvy, one way they unconsciously demonstrate their savvy is to use the word 'data' correctly. My colleagues will regularly say 'these data imply so-and-so', and new lab people pick up this usage rather quickly. However! No matter how long they've been at it, most people in biology will continue to use 'media' (the liquid that cells are suspended in, containing growth factors and such) as a singular noun, even when several media are being compared in an experiment. If I say 'could you add some medium to these cultures' I will get a double-take most of the time. It's become an honorary singular/plural combo noun.

 

[PyramidHead]

There was once a study that tracked the eye movements of people reading a paragraph that contained grammatical and spelling errors. Basically, they reasoned that the errors that bugged people the most would tend to be lingered on by their eyes while reading. Whether or not that's true, what they found was that most errors provoked similar levels of eye attention, except for one: the apostrophe. Something about a misused contraction or plural is like a flashing neon sign for our visual attention. It might be a cultural thing that sprung out of the information age, kind of like how Comic Sans is now almost universally regarded as a disgusting font.

 

[ideologyhunter]

I do tire easily of grammarians and spelling wonks. However, I can't get enough of Trump's semi-literate screeds in Tweetworld. Our extremely balanced genius of a chief exec. has never sorted out principle/principal. He has brought to our attention councel (counsel), hear by (hereby), honer (honor), polices (policies), develope, profesional, 'payed for', and 'waist of time'. He comes off as a smart-alecky high school sophomore who knows everything without mastering anything. (Also the kind of adolescent snot who would say, 'I don't need to know how to spell. I'll have secretaries who do that for me!')

 

[Angry Floof]

There was once a study that tracked the eye movements of people reading a paragraph that contained grammatical and spelling errors. Basically, they reasoned that the errors that bugged people the most would tend to be lingered on by their eyes while reading. Whether or not that's true, what they found was that most errors provoked similar levels of eye attention, except for one: the apostrophe. Something about a misused contraction or plural is like a flashing neon sign for our visual attention. It might be a cultural thing that sprung out of the information age, kind of like how Comic Sans is now almost universally regarded as a disgusting font.

To me, this is the only reason to worry about mistakes in most writing. If it interrupts the flow of communication and the reader's attention, you should probably fix it. That goes for grammar and spelling errors as well as focusing on getting the rules right. Going by the rules often creates awkward reading, or only adds a stiff and pompous tone. I did this a lot in my first job in tech writing, but fortunately my boss was a sharp editor and good mentor.

I think learning the rules is the best way to know how to break them to sort of use them as literary devices. Sometimes you want to get someone's attention through purposeful error. Probably not in business, academic, or legal documents, but in most any other kind of writing it takes more skill than just following rules to actually use those rules and mistakes to subtly move the thoughts of the reader.

One example I remember from my teenage years always comes to mind because that's when I first became aware of using language this way. When a friend and I were about 13 or 14, we decided to read Clan of the Cave Bear at the same time. We came to this part:

"Fire! Fire! Yes, fire," he shouted, gesticulating toward the flames. "Do you have any idea what it could mean to make a fire that fast?"

"Fyr ...?"

"Yes, like that over there," he said, jabbing his finger in the air at the fireplace. "How did you make it?"

She got up, went to the fireplace and pointed to it, "Fyr?" she said.

He heaved a sigh and leaned back on the furs, suddenly realizing he had been trying to force her to understand words she didn't know.

My friend said she thought it was stupid to misspell fire like that. Obviously, the characters can't read. That's when I put on my writer/editor hat for the first time. I intuitively understood the effect of the misspelling and explained to my friend that it had the effect of jarring her, the reader, in a way that made the word seem alien and new as it would have to the character. I wouldn't have used the phrase "literary device" because I didn't know of that term, but it was easy to understand what was going on and to explain it.

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

Mine is the misspelling of the word ‘misspell’ when complaining about someone’s misspelling.

 

[Speakpigeon]

"Fire! Fire! Yes, fire," he shouted, gesticulating toward the flames. "Do you have any idea what it could mean to make a fire that fast?"

"Fyr ...?"

"Yes, like that over there," he said, jabbing his finger in the air at the fireplace. "How did you make it?"

She got up, went to the fireplace and pointed to it, "Fyr?" she said.

He heaved a sigh and leaned back on the furs, suddenly realizing he had been trying to force her to understand words she didn't know.

My friend said she thought it was stupid to misspell fire like that. Obviously, the characters can't read. That's when I put on my writer/editor hat for the first time. I intuitively understood the effect of the misspelling and explained to my friend that it had the effect of jarring her, the reader, in a way that made the word seem alien and new as it would have to the character. I wouldn't have used the phrase "literary device" because I didn't know of that term, but it was easy to understand what was going on and to explain it.

Doesn't work. The dialogue doesn't.

I don't know at the time of the Cave Bear Clan but nowadays, and I assume already when you were little even if that was possibly some time ago, "fyr" wouldn't have been pronounced at all like "fire". So, it was not only misspelled, it was also mispronounced.

I guess I've found something to complain about at last.
EB

 

[bilby]

The use of plural forms as though they were singular.

"The disease is caused by a bacteria". "Radio is his favourite media".

There is a strange trend in the biological lab sciences. As people get more savvy, one way they unconsciously demonstrate their savvy is to use the word 'data' correctly. My colleagues will regularly say 'these data imply so-and-so', and new lab people pick up this usage rather quickly. However! No matter how long they've been at it, most people in biology will continue to use 'media' (the liquid that cells are suspended in, containing growth factors and such) as a singular noun, even when several media are being compared in an experiment. If I say 'could you add some medium to these cultures' I will get a double-take most of the time. It's become an honorary singular/plural combo noun.

I shall add that datum to my considerable body of evidence that people are crazy.

It's consistent with my experience in biology labs. People who cringe at 'a bacteria' have no problem with using 'growth media' as though it were singular.

Most singular behaviour, as Holmes might remark.

 

[bilby]

A particular hate of mine is when people pronounce 'dissect' as 'di-sect', instead of 'dis-sect'.

Dissect means 'cut up into its component sections'. Di-sect, if it were a real word, would mean 'cut in half'. A stage magician might di-sect a woman; but a pathologist dissects her. The word even supplies an 's' for each syllable. Fucking use them both.

 

[4321lynx]

OK

Iraq and Iran, pronounced as eyeraq and eyeran, and sometimes Italian as eyetalian, but never Italy as eyetaly. Why?

 

[bilby]

OK

Iraq and Iran, pronounced as eyeraq and eyeran, and sometimes Italian as eyetalian, but never Italy as eyetaly. Why?

Because Iran, Iran's so far away...

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIpfWORQWhU[/YOUTUBE]