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?

Argh, have just seen 'are' for 'our'. Why? How? Why?

Oh, and 'discrete' instead of 'discreet'. Just seen it again. Drives me nuts.

Oooh, I used the word discreet today, and was very careful to use the correct one, knowing that it wound someone right up- I remember who, now

I'm spending too much time on here. Someone is "airing on the side of caution" on another thread

I have to write a couple of sentences of gibberish at the beginning of each post to avoid offending anyone who's doing a 'last 15 minutes' search.

Anyone see eaves dropping earlier?

Too pedantic?

SleepingLion - the Oasis song "Round Are Way" winds me up for the same reason. I know Noel G is dyslexic, but why did everyone else let it through?

I saw on a thread the other day someone saying 'My mum really anoid me today'

I nearly came over here to report immediately, but thought it was a bit childish. Never normally stops me, though.

Someone 'wondered off to bed' last night, apparently.

D'you think they really went off to bed wondering? Or did they mean 'wandered'?

Oh I don't know, I wonder off to bed.

I generally wonder through most of life, actually.

See, Getorf, that's why I wouldn't query it on the other thread - after an evening on MN, I often wonder off to bed

How about "disinterested" instead of "uninterested"? Many people obviously have no idea of the difference but think former sounds better!

Unnecessary (wrong) use of apostrophes. For example, I have just seen a post for which the title says something like, "I have just had my blood test's done". When you click on the link (why oh why did I do that?!) you are treated to this: "everytime the phone ring's i jump"

I always wonder if the people who do this (apostrophe abuse) are just thick, or if they really cannot see what they are doing, or if they really do think that you always need "one of them little dash fings" before an S, as the woman who used to do my mum's hair said once...

Today in RL I passed a cafe which sells cooked breakfasts. On the chalk board outside they were offering "The Full Monte" which presumably rhymes with "Del Monte" and is a better class of full English...

I had someone tell me to 'alaise with the department coordinator' today.

WTF?

Saying 'bartering' when what the speaker means is 'haggling'. Have to bite my tongue every time!

What I don't get about the apostrophe problem is that it is so bloody easy to learn how to use them. If one could be arsed. Wherein, I suspect, lies the problem.

Poledra, my sister confuses 'wander' and 'wonder' - well, not confuses them so much as uses 'wander' for both meanings. I never have the heart to correct her!

It's the same with there/ their/ they're. Our teacher in 2nd year at secondary school (so when we were 12-13) once set us a homework exercise to write sentences distinguishing between them.

I did it in about thirty seconds. I was puzzled by the exercise. Until then, it had never even occurred to me that anybody would confuse these words.

Dad - I like the "dash things" story

Can anyone tell me (and I should probably hide and/or duck before asking this!), but is it actually OK to use till now (and I am not talking about a supermarket till)? I still stick to until or - wait for it - 'til because it has always REALLY annoyed me, but so many people use it now (and I even get it in correspondence from other lawyers, and we are all such pedants that things are usually spelt correctly even if the content is bollocks) that I think it might have become acceptable. What do you think? I want to stick to good old until, but if it is correct to use till then I will stop correcting trainees! Just thought that someone here would know.

KFW - I'm a lawyer and I wouldn't use "till" but having said that I'm boring and old fashioned. Keep correcting those trainees. You're providing a public service.

KFW- I have always used 'til, but interestingly Microsoft Word corrects it to till; although this could be because it recognises the supermarket variety.

I want to know too.

I do sometimes use til without the preceding '; but would never use till in that case. I use Tis as well for 'it is' sometimes - but never in formal use. Only on chat boards, emails to friends etc. where I write as I speak.

Can I add another one in - 'lead' when you mean 'led'. I got that in a solicitor's letter once - didn't make me feel terribly confident! I know I shouldn't judge so strongly but for me, bad spelling signifies lack of attention to detail - something you don't want in a profession where details matter (such as legal and medical professions).

thumbwitch I think that "led" is the only way, isn't it? "Lead" must be a mistake in that context?

Interestingly, I was speaking to a senior barrister not that long ago and we were talking about typos etc and he said, "Show me a legal letter without any mistakes and I'll show you someone who has wasted the client's money." Not sure I agree with it, but it shows that there is more than one view to the attention to detail point. (I personally relish the detail at work , but I do see his point if you have people reviewing things at £100s of pounds an hour...)

tethersend - why am I not surprised to find another lawyer on this thread?

Looks as though the until/til/till thing is not resolved. I was sort of (only sort of) hoping you'd all tell me to stop being so silly about it, so that I could stop irritating colleagues, but alas it seems that my mission must continue

Absolutely 'lead' was a mistake, KFW, sorry for not being clear on that point.

I don't understand why a legal letter should be exempt from spell-checking at all. Unless he's suggesting that it takes too long to actually check that the detail in the letter is correct, and that the time taken to check it would cost the client? In which case I would still expect it to be done, I'm afraid.