Grammar mistakes that drive you crazy

[SpoiltMardyCow]

I have two:

He hung himself. Instead of he hanged himself.

It was so fun. Instead it was either "such fun" or "so much fun"

What are your grammar bug bears?

A vote in favour of the Oxford comma

Being even more pedantic some examples here are not grammatical errors- they are spelling errors- eg practise/ practice.

Polly You're right. I added it because it's just so irritating when people don't realise that in the UK, they're different words with different meanings and functions. I get fed up with reading school reports stating that 'X needs to attend netball practise more regularly' or 'X should practice her spellings'. I get even more irritated when colleagues don't alter these errors before sending them home to parents.

I still think my examples of "you was", "I seen him" and "I don't know nothing about that" are worse than spelling mistakes or colloquial language. "You should of gotten it off him." just doesn't upset me as much as "You wasn't doin' nothin', was ya?"

I hate 'no worries' when people mean 'Don't worry about it.'

'To worry' is a verb. It's something you do.

I accept that 'a worry' as a noun exists, as in 'My mum's health is a worry', but I don't think it's right to use it in place of 'no problem'.

Oh and at shop till-

'Five items or less'.

Fewer, if you please.

"my examples of "you was"

CremeEgg, isn't 'you was' just southern English dialect in the way that 'I were' (not subjunctive) is northern dialect?

I think it is very bad grammar, Gwen, but I agree "I were" is as bad.

I'm generally ok with 'dialect' but I think it looks awful written down. I can live with hearing "I were" but written down? No.

Maybe the problem is that we're seeing, thanks to social media, more words written down that, in the past, would have just been spoken, and then forgotten about.

You may say Chester Draws, and not know (or care) about the spelling, but as soon as your ad goes on Gumtree...and it's there for posterity, to be pointed at and giggled over by the nest of vipers that is mumsnet.

It must be the same for would of/could of. It's what some people say, and thanks to social media, gets written down and then becomes acceptable (to some).

The differences between correct and incorrect use of the written word seem to be less clear nowadays.

Numpties like David Crystal and Scott Thornbury or numpties like the people who clearly don't know the rules for the second conditional profbadbride?

"I agree "I were" is as bad."

No! I didn't write that 'I were' is bad. I wrote that it was part of dialect. That doesn't make it 'bad' in spoken language. Standard English is also just a dialect of English.
Absolutely, yes you're right that it's not correct in written language but I think CremeEgg was talking about spoken language. The aim, surely, is to use the right register for the right type of communication, not to impose the rules of the written language on the spoken one.

oh, well the twin of I were' is 'we was'

I'm talking about both spoken and written language, although it is much worse to see incorrect grammar in writing. I think most people used to know the difference years ago, but with the increase in popularity of social media, it seems acceptable for people to write as they speak. For example, I doubt a Cockney born in the 1970s would write, "We was...", but I'm not so sure about one born in the late 1990s.

gwen I'd say we was, I were, etc is technically incorrect. I'm not sure, though, whether it would be regarded as incorrect amongst those using that dialect, although if I were (no pun intended) a Yorkshireman, say, I'd still want to use the correct form.

I like FAIL!

In my accent, I say chest o' droh-wers. And pour, poor and pore are not homophones.

I think that's unlikely, creme.

Think of all the people who weren't even considered to need a basic education a few decades ago, for one thing, and all the people whose special needs weren't catered to properly. That must have an impact on average levels of SPAG.

Besides, people have been complaining that 'back in the day' everyone's language was much more correct, and now things are going to hell in a handcart, for millenia.

I can't really see why it matters, and this thread does tend to illustrate the fact that it's those who're keenest to nitpick who're least aware of their own shortcomings.

What sounds like I were in some northern accents is actually I wa' - you can hear this better when the wa' is emphasised - "You w'n't there!" "I bloody wa'!"

Does this do anything to people's inner grammar pedant?

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

(posted this on another thread..about comma splices )

I wouldn't know; three words of Dickens and I start to glaze over.

No, because it was or rectangular at the time it was written. Although it doesn't captivate and entice me into reading any more!

I am not sure how correct became rectangular. Apologies on behalf of my keyboard.

I always wince when someone attempts to increase their appearance or feeling of erudition and throws in an extra word that just highlights their linguistic shortcomings.

I don't mind mispers, typos and all the usual errors, I even forgive missing, extra or plain wrong punctuation. Odd turns of phrase can be a delight and I do love a good long or unusual word but extraneous verbiage irritates.

Hence why I am posting this!

disinterested/uninterested boils my pee too

Actually, the "not interested" meaning of disinterested is older than the "impartial" meaning of the word going back as far as 1600 or so. It shifted sometime later and grammarians began to insist on a distinction between the two. The meaning is now shifting back. "Dis" and "un" mean essentially the same thing. It's different meanings of "interest" that keep the distinction alive.

When I hear someone at the counter saying 'Can I get a skinny latte'* instead of have*. It may be grammatically correct ( ?), I'm no expert but it annoys the hell out of me.

Boils my pee and gives me the rage tend to put me off too.

Not as much as just saying though.

"Can I get" is grammatically correct. The only thing that one can quibble with grammatically in "can I get" is the use of "can" rather than "may." The definition of "get" is "to come to have or hold (something); receive". So "can I get" is as correct as "can I have." "Get" does not have some sort of built-in reflexive as so many posters on MN seem to think.