Scream into the pillow of this thread and avoid scorn on others...

[tethersend]

Pedant's refuge: I have to get it out, but not on the threads themselves as I'll get ripped to shreds it's not polite. It's safe here.

Pier pressure

What gems have made your teeth itch in silent rage?

Nope, that's just Google + cut & paste!

That's one way of putting it- I expect my children would agree wholeheartedly with that analysis.

I can't remember any of the others right now- this is quite some time ago, let's face it; longer than I should admit to. I think I have them written down somewhere so I promise to look and report back.

Meanwhile perhaps we could have a competition on MN to decide what (to the right of my cursor as I type) is meant by "to bold a word". I'm buggered if I know- sounds like something Captain Kirk might have said.

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, but I get irked by the misuse of anti-social for unsociable. It is unsociable to not bother going to the party: it is anti-social to piss in the punchbowl if you do.

I saw one on here a few days ago that made me smile - villian, for villain. WHen I was little, I misread that the first time I saw it and did pronounce it as villian - I was quite disappointed to find it wasn't that way!

Perhaps you were getting mixed up with ruffains?

Isn't "would of" used tongue in cheek these days? I saw it written in a Guardian article. I've used it tongue in cheek instead of would have, because so many people use 'would of' in speech.

THen again, I feel here is the place I must apologize for my absolute SHITE sentence syntaxing. Since I'm not living in an English speaking country, and I don't get to hear English, I've regressed.
I've also found sometimes that people who reply to my posts end up writing like me. I can only guess that they have to get down to a "certain level" to understand my posts, then once they're in the zone, they're infected.
So...sorry about that

I am tempted to print out this theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling and put it up at work, but I fear it would be greeted with blank looks and general mystery.

I know Terry Pratchett uses "would of" etc. in his books where he has children talking, notably the Johnny series and Good Omens. To reflect how children speak before they understand the grammar, probably and therefore deliberate. Haven't seen it in a paper, but unless it was in quotation marks I would not necessarily think it is being used ironically.

BOF - har-de-har.

Nails scraping down a blackboard for me when I hear

"I was SAT there" or "I was LAYING down"

Aaarrrgh. (This does seem to be an English problem rather than Scottish, Irish or Welsh btw) (and quite a common one at that).

Argh! Never seen it before and now twice in one day:

"Of cause" for of course.

ARGH!

Increasingly, in all sorts of publications, "I" used instead of "me" - e.g. "when they came to stay with my partner and I .."

UQD, I saw "wry" spelt "rye" on a post on MN yesterday!

Ha, there's a joke about that -
Man dies, goes up to Heaven, knocks on the pearly gates. St. Peter calls out:
"Who is there?"
"It is I" replies the man
"piss off" says St.Peter "we've enough English graduates up here".

Mind you, it was in a Student Rag Mag (does anyone still do those?) and they probably had something against English grads

Confusing "borrow" and "lend". For e.g.: "I'll borrow it you."

I feel disloyal to my northern mates now, but it grates every time they say it

Confusing thought and taught. I saw this on a poster advertising music lessons; "Children will be thought to read music..."

KFW, my OH does the borrow/lend thing, I could murder him each time!

This was unbelievable - heard someone talking about going to see a thysio-pherapist. (Apparently it sounded too common to start the word with an f sound). Is this a common mistake. (there goes the snob in me again). :0)

Same profession, different person, appeared in report on patient's state of mind : compass menthos

more worrying - I am loosely related to the first person and work closely with the second.

confuddled - You must upgrade OH immediately

Ooh I saw one on a thread on here earlier where a mother was talking about giving a child free reign

No, it's free rein, for heaven's sake! The expression comes from the equestrian term meaning a rein held loosely to allow a horse freedom of movement.

oh I saw that one too, SleepingLion - have seen it a few times and did actually laugh to myself as it's quite appropriate in that form as well! Given that some parents do allow their offspring to rule the roost in the house...

oh I saw that one too, SleepingLion - have seen it a few times and did actually laugh to myself as it's quite appropriate in that form as well! Given that some parents do allow their offspring to rule the roost in the house...

great, just love it when the internet does that to me...

God, I've just seen "culdi-sac". Sounds like an anatomical part.

Arf porridge- had just come to post the very same thing