To invite the grammar and language pedants to share their pet peeves?

[AlertCat]

AIBU to feel annoyed when I see people say Slither instead of sliver? It was even in a book I read recently. A slither of cake. No! That makes no sense, unless the cake’s been trodden into the carpet!

Also see: step foot in instead of set foot in

There’s plenty of others but those will do for now.

Doesn't it bother you at least equally when people on MN abuse people for their failures in all sorts of different fields, e.g. childcare, parenting, relationships, housekeeping, driving, etc? It's so hypocritical that being uncomfortable with poor grammar is treated as a major crime on MN, yet you can be as offensive as you like about every other aspect of people's lives.

‘Pissed’ being used in the ‘pissed off’ context. You’re not American, unless you want to piss off of the sidewalk

I am hit and miss and proud.

Would/could/should of. There’s a thread title with hat in right now.

Yes, fair point wrt pp motives. Thanks and apologies to @thelakeisle if I got it wrong.

Carn’t just how???

This:

Now I'm going to howl (and probably get shouted at). I loved tautology and abhor but no, you can not have 'singularly' unique. Something is unique, one of a kind and anything more is redundant.

Probably already mentioned but loose instead of lose.

Well, at least he was useful for something!

‘Pissed’ being used in the ‘pissed off’ context. You’re not American, unless you want to piss off of the sidewalk

I saw a discussion of this elsewhere. It was pointed out that 'that jock is pissed' has a completely different meaning depending on whether you're in the UK or the US.

Language is primarily for communication. Provided the person is communicating their meaning adquately,....

But often they aren't. One has to read two or three times to work out what is meant. And sometimes I just give up because it's too much bother.

"Yous" is the plural "you", used in the North East.
I'm surprised an educated person uses such dialect in writing though.

It's true what they say about frogs and jokes dying when you dissect them.

look, just because I went to the local comp doesn't mean I didn't grasp the finer points of ancient humour (who doesn't love Juvenal) and it appealed to my juvenile sense of fun to say how much I detest a tautology whilst simultaneously using a tautology.

People had better get used to that sort of wordplay as "AI" starts to think it's witty.

I kid you not, my dh has a legal office and regularly receives letters and emails from a legal company....

I recently had dealings with a solicitor, in connection with a house sale. One communication I had from him asked me to 'bare with...' His communications were also littered with grammar and punctuation errors.

I'm of an age when girls used to do secretarial training. Legal secretary used to be seen as the top job, because such high standards of accuracy were required.

The spelling and grammar errors from my son’s teachers never fails to irritate me.
It just smacks of unprofessionalism, and it takes every bit of restraint i posses - not to tell them.

And they’ve also doled out homework that was incorrect. I know they get their teaching materials from Twinkl, but, man alive - check it first!

Nothing funnier (or sadder) than reading a cv littered with spelling mistakes that boasts "attention to detail".

I've had some quite amusing debates over this. Personally I bin them. Not because I give a shit about the candidates SPAG skills (which the less bright assume). But simply if you can't be arsed to press "F7" before you send off one of the most important documents in your working life, then you - my friend - aren't the person for me.

SPAG in the IT community (much like handwriting 😀) doesn't really reach a high average. I am very much an outlier (or freak ....)

What - do you think I'm an AI?

You'll have to show your working as to how you inferred that from my - admittedly elliptical - comment. I wonder if anyone else read that meaning ?

It's possible to be bothered by more than one type of rudeness on MN. The poster was not commenting on people who are bothered by incorrect grammar, but on the rudeness of posters correcting other posters, when often errors are the result of learning difficulties.

As a result of my having walked the long walk toward basic literacy with my now adult child who has significant learning difficulties, I think I can usually spot a poster whose mistakes result from dyslexia and related difficulties. Posters who correct them are not doing them a favor; they are instead displaying ableist attitudes that unfortunately are as prevalent on MN as they are in society at large.

I brought a house (where the heck did this come from? It isn't even a typo)

I defiantly want a piece of cake (this one always makes me laugh, the mental image of someone standing up, slamming their fist on the table and insisting with defiance they WILL have their cake!)

Plutonic relationship (with a Martian clearly!)

Beastiality (I guess this one makes logical sense, at least)

@RitaIncognita i would tend to agree with you, the only exception being if the poster’s meaning is obscured by the mistake and clarification is needed.

I'm defiantly going to do that next time I want a piece of cake!

Well, in the case of the book I'm reading at the moment it's a perfectly ordinary, so called, 'thriller' from the library.

I must admit, it's a bit feeble - Tolstoy it isn't - and it certainly isn't thrilling me, but it readable I suppose.

Unfortunately, 'was stood, was sat and so on seems to be everywhere now, both in writing and speech. It tends to go with the use of 'I' used when me is required, and 'yourself/myself' when you and me is required.

I haven't heard or noticed this before but I'm thinking it is intended to be explanatory. It is making explicit what the change involves. A listener or viewer would have to know the current voting age threshold to glean that information from the other phrase.

Is this the same thinking that lies behind the phrase 'one-year, two-year etc anniversary' which I've noticed only recently, where I would say 'first, second etc anniversary'? Is it assumed that readers might not know the meaning of 'anniversary' so they spell it out?

I had a solicitor, recently qualified, who was confused about 'formerly' and 'formally'. It was embarrassing.