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.

Meanwhile I’m delighted someone has a thread about a pink hydrangea that’s supposed to be blue so I can legitimately refer to ‘aluminium sulfate’.

I think it’s aping the style of comedians. It’s ok in a performance because they’re semi-re-enacting the event, I think, but rather silly otherwise.

Off of?!

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

True! 🤡

A lot of comic routines look dreadful written out. Like Shakespeare really 😀

Stewart Lee once commented (in a footnote to a footnote to a footnote, if I remember correctly) that his ambition was to deliver an entire set that could not be transcribed ....

Idiosyncratic punctuation has its own merits!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6028507/Forensic-linguist-reveals-murderer-snared-sending-texts-commas.html

👍😂

How incredibly discourteous of you! Why would I lie, especially somewhere as inconsequential as an on line forum? I know that I've never heard it because I haven't. It would jump out at me as being so wrong. I concede that I can't vouch for what I heard when I was a baby and young child, but if I had heard it as an adult, I would have thought that the person speaking didn't know the proper phrase, much like someone saying "She did it off her own back".

EXACTLY! It is used increasingly over here and an example of needlessly adding unnecessary words - ‘He got off of the bus’, ‘I took the book off of the shelf’, ‘get your hairy hands off of me’ etc.

Conversely the missing out of words like in the “pissed off” example I gave - ‘I’m so pissed at you right now!’

Im not really sure why they do it - whether it’s a style choice from the director or whether it’s just how people speak these days or what. It bothers me although it probably shouldn’t!

I always forget about AI because I have disabled it everywhere I can and refuse to use it. I KNOW WHAT I MEAN and I don't need some computer program which has just scraped content from other people to tell me that it knows better than I do what I meant to say!

I most emphatically agree! I write/have written both fiction and academic articles. I'm of an age to have learned SPAG at primary school (and it also happens to be something I'm naturally good at, unlike maths, which I am not good at).

NO AI CAN SAY WHAT I WANT TO SAY BETTER THAN I CAN!

Thanks (I think) 🤔 😁

The future of humankind is looking increasingly like it will be a case of perpetually checking "AI".

Sorry! 🤭

Discreet/discrete drive me mad. But when someone uses either of them correctly I get a little rush or happiness, so it works both ways. Especially 'discrete.'

Begging the question misused to mean raises the question.
Misuse of the reflexive pronoun, ‘can you give the form to myself’.
disinterested/uninterested
’Do you want coffee at all?’ Yes, but to a limited extent!
affect/effect mix up
brought/bought mix up
’Can you phone John or I later?’

Can I give an honourable mention to councillor? The number of posts I see on here where people are in relationship difficulties and they appear to be seeking help from their local council rather than, as would be more sensible, a counsellor.

Using 'your' instead of 'you're' irritates me,as does not knowing the difference between 'affect' and 'effect'. And as for Americanisms,don't get me started,such as 'closet' instead of wardrobe,'candy' instead of sweets. And apostrophes. The rules of apostrophes aren't that difficult. Apostrophe before the 's' if it's singular, and after the 's' if it's plural.

😁 😁 😁

‘I’ve got an itch’
’Well itch it then’

NO!

You do not itch an itch. You scratch an itch.

It may well be regional, but “…going town…” really jars with me. Surely it should be going to town or going into town?

Also less/fewer, grrr.

Overcorrecting for the indiscriminate use of “and I” even where the sentence construction demands otherwise. I imagine this is from being corrected from early childhood (as I certainly was).

so:

”Me and Jessica went” - nearest adult immediately booms “JESSICA AND I” (which is a correct correction because you don’t say “me went” - not because it is never ok to say “me”)

but then overcorrecting:

”please submit your forms to Jessica and I” (incorrect because you don’t say “submit your forms to I”)

and even:

“This relates to Jessica and I’s project”

This is a dearly cherished pet grammar peeve.

Also: none are - incorrect because none is a contraction of not one.

Yes that university’s one the other day really got to me. Then someone said it was correct. However I could not telll if it was correct or not. OP had not put sufficient context in the title to clarify that.

Another thing I find really jarring is when people put "needs" with a past tense verb. Usually it's on FB Marketplace and the post says "needs gone" or "needs cleaned" but I saw someone saying something "needs ironed" earlier. I detest it - partly because it's wrong and partly because I want to seller to clean the muck of the their highchair before I buy it, thank you very much!

I also dislike the current trend to use the word "prior" instead of "before". I don't think it's technically wrong but I think people believe it makes them sound cleverer. E.g "I had spoken to him six days prior" instead of "I had spoken to him six days before". I don't slhear people use it in conversation - only ever online.