Free REIN! Not reign. BEAR with me not bare.

[heldinadream]

The number of times I want to write the above on a thread is growing and growing, but I bite my tongue and sit on my hands because such comments never bring relief they merely unleash abuse and derision and accusations of grammar Nazism.
Now tell me, should I have capitalised 'Nazi' in this context? I could not decide.
I can take it.

Every time someone says bare with me I imagine them naked. And reign it in or free reign earns them a crown. 👸I am a very visual person as well as a language lover. So I cannot help it, my days are increasingly populated by naked posters and posters that have become royal.
As for chester draws - little Chester, sitting there with his pencils...

Also, I keep seeing non and none being mixed up. They do not sound the same!

They do sound the same to a lot of people, including me.

I for one am greatful for your post, OP

😉🤪

Capitalising common nouns - e.g. the Hospital, the Doctor, the Police - drives me mad especially as they constantly appear in documents I have to proof-read for work.

How about ‘tow’ the line, instead of toe the line? That one makes me long to get out my red pen!

That's the correct use of "farther".

Farther- physical or metaphorical distance only.
Further- can also mean more.

Someone on another forum I use, frequently capitalises Wife, Sister, Daughter. He’s supposed to be an educationalist.

Per say
Peeked my interest

🥳

I like this thread ALOT...the sheer amount of posters who think a lot is one word is shocking.

It's neither - it's foul swoop. 😂
Someone's going to disagree with me now, I feel it in my bones...

It's definately ('defiantly')

As usual on Pedants' corner, plenty of evidence that the people despairing or laughing at other people's SPAG aren't usually very good at it themselves!

I love "firstable", I might start using it

"Myself" and "Yourself" is so annoying. Drives myself mad.

I think some people feel it's the correct or formal version of me and you.

Yep, I came to say the myself^ and yourself thing. I recently received an email from the Head of HR at my daughter's academy and she used them both incorrectly.^

Vodaphone and Wheatabix drive me mad! They're brand names, how can you get them wrong?! 😩

Vodaphone and Wheatabix drive me mad! They're brand names, how can you get them wrong?! 😩

Really easily, I expect. Like many brand names, they are deliberate misspellings of actual words. If that doesn't confuse people who find spelling difficult, I don't know what would! WhatsApp is another common culprit.

No end of cases of 'loose' seen today, when 'lose' is what's required. They are not interchangeable!

The ' my husband and I '
When it should be 'me and my husband '

It's not always I.

That's driving me mad!
Rishi will "loose" the election - that's going to keep happening for six weeks.

I rewatched the west wing recently and Toby Ziegler the Whitehouse chief of communication says this!

I noticed a rise in ‘been’ when posters mean ‘being’ on MN recently.

Please can we have a national campaign about the inappropriate use of ‘myself’ and ‘sat’ vs ‘sitting’. If someone made a mistake with numbers we would feel fine about correcting them but for some reason it is considered rude to correct spelling and grammar. Anyone is welcome to correct any mistakes I have made here!

I saw a very novel use of 'bare' recently - 'he bore his teeth at me' - which gave me a good laugh. That was in a book, which I then abandoned, but I often wonder if publishing companies employ proofreaders and editors any more, or are they just all a bit thick with no language skills at all? I read a lot and sadly it is all too rare to find one without errors.

That's because it's an American programme using correct US English.

Yes all proofreaders are thick I expect good spot.

“Upmost” grinds my gears.

I do think many of these changes are reflective of a general decline in “proper” reading. We spend too much time on our phones - I am guilty of it myself and read far fewer books than I used to. So we don’t see as much properly proofed “good” English in writing. People are therefore relying on what they hear, or someone’s badly written posts/tweets/fanfic etc

A national campaign about embracing regional variation in language would be a great idea.