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.

Unnecessary capital letters give me the rage. Like "my Mum, my Dad" etc.My brother was in charge of my dad's funeral notice in the paper & all the unnecessarily capital letters made my head ache

I've managed to avoid the yay/yea debacle for whole decades at a time. Phew! 😅

I was "sat" instead of sitting!! annoys the life out of me!

Argh yes and yes.

Unnecessary apostrophes too. I cringed when a TA I worked with wrote in her notes, for all to see, "I supported her in math's"

defiantly instead of definitely

I think that's possibly autocorrecting from definately.

And having just read another thread - myself and yourself.

Please contact myself. People were informed by myself. I will take yourself to the shops. (Or in the Traitors) - I am voting for yourself, Dave.

The words are ME and YOU. Using ME and YOU is not rude or impolite.

Surely it’s ‘your’ instead of ‘you’re’? I see that so often on MN and it does my head in.

Also apostrophes on plurals. Went past a sign locally the other day with ‘egg’s for sale’ outside and I nearly knocked on the door I was in such a funk about it. Massive house, Range Rover on the gravel drive with wrought iron gates but can’t use apostrophes properly… wt actual f?

Brilliant 🤣

I am curious about something. Why do these mistakes bother you so much? What goes on in your head when you see one of these mistakes? Is it a bit like nails on a blackboard?

As someone with dyslexia I struggle with spelling and grammar rules but more so when I am worried. If I relax I am more likely to not make mistakes (or is it - more likely not to make mistakes 😀).

I feel your rage. When I worked in PR in the insurance sector, I was in agony for several hours most days as every piece of copy that came across my desk for editing featured capital letters for every single noun. Not once did I shout: 'WE ARE NOT GERMAN' but it was very tempting.

I absolutely hate the overuse of "would" especially when it is used twice in a conditional sentence.
"If we would have eaten earlier, we wouldn't have missed the train."
The first would is superfluous. "If we had eaten earlier, we wouldn't have missed the train."
I don't know why this bugs me so much but it really does.
As well as appearing in the conditional, would can be used to describe repeated events in the past such as, "When we were little, my dad would take us to the lake every weekend". "Used to" can also be used instead of would.
However, I've noticed would creeping in everywhere, where simple past would suffice.

Once you see it, you can't unseen it. It's everywhere, like Japanese Knotweed.

Mixing up "non" and "none".

People who confuse “woman” and “women”

If course I am, but I dont share their feelings. I don't think it's a "you're right, I'm wrong" thing.

I don't go around constantly correcting people though - God knows that would be a full time job - but this thread is not about that. We have been invited to share which common mistakes annoy us. I find it odd that you're not interested in the subject actually.

If there are any music radio presenters reading this thread, a "self-titled" album would be one the artist thought up the title to themselves, which is probably 99.9% of albums. What you mean is "eponymous".

I have just double-checked with the dictionary (Oxford Concise) and this is the distinction although “while” can be used where “whilst” would be but not the other way around which is what seems to happen quite often.

Why do so many people not understand the difference between past and passed?

I see it all the time and it drives me mad. A sign in a local car park "no parking passed this sign"!

Why do these mistakes bother you so much?

Language - and the way we use it - is a fundamental component of the socialisation that makes us human.

So much so that people have been killed over how they pronounce something, let alone a tiny grammatical or syntactical slip.

So it can arise deep deep emotions.

(In case anyone needs a defence in court 😀)

Weird use of inverted commas: ‘He said “he didn’t eat meat”’ so I said “I didn’t care, he could eat it or not.”’
If you’re quoting someone, quote them, or convey the gist of the conversation without quoting, either is fine.
If I made a punctuation error above 😊 I’ve no doubt someone will tell me 😊

Ditto to that, plus ‘discrete’ when they mean ‘discreet’. The meanings are entirely different - it’s not an alternative spelling.

My husband occasionally uses the word “his”. It infuriates me.

Plural verbs used with singular nouns. Eg 'The crowd sing along with Wonderwall.'

"Please contact myself if you have any questions"

"Katie and myself are handling this process"

etc...

🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

The word they are looking for is "me" in the first example and "I" in the second.

I see ‘abit’ on here frequently. I’ve also seen ‘alittle’ and ‘afew’ written more than once.

I also can’t stand ‘lay’ instead of ‘lie’.

‘We was in a relationship’ and ‘I’m going gym’ are also unbearable.