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...

One that irritated me so much I had to correct the person.

"We are doing this so you will be more readier...".

This was a lecturer who corrected my English to American English. She wasn't American.

@Lovetotravel123 the sat vs sitting thing can be a regional variation. I would never write, "I was sat..." in a formal piece of writing, but if I'm using my Yorkshire accent I might.

I would also mash tea.
Wait while.. - meaning wait until.
Sweets might become spegs or spice.

I eye-roll when someone starts a sentence with “so”. I see this often - “So I went to work yesterday” etc. Also on my list is the term “very unique”. Something is either unique or it isn’t, there aren’t various levels of uniqueness. I’d never correct anyone though, just sigh and move on.

Fell swoop
According to this article it is fell swoop, likely coined by Shakespeare in Macbeth.

OP, I think you are fighting a loosing battle here...
<ducks and runs>

But if you have learned it in the first place, it doesn't matter how much time you spend on phones, tablets etc.

Something is either unique or it isn’t, there aren’t various levels of uniqueness

I don’t agree - I mean say you examined two factory made plates closely enough they won’t be actually be completely identical. There will be tiny imperfections and differences in size and so on. If you want to be a purist about the word unique I think you’d have to accept that basically everything (except perhaps single cells or atoms) is unique. To use the word usefully we do accept that we are talking about something being over a threshold of uniqueness or it being sufficiently unique. The fact there are levels of uniqueness is baked in.

I also wouldn’t correct people saying “something can’t be very unique” in real like, I would just move on. I think I’m allowed to correct you in pedants’ corner though!

edited to add - I wouldn’t use “very unique” by the way as I’m aware that in standard English a native speaker wouldn’t modify unique. I’m just saying that I consider the idea that there are no degrees of uniqueness to be incorrect.

This is an interesting article on the subject which is saying a similar thing to me but better expressed -

https://accuracymatters.co.uk/writing-tips-can-we-use-very-unique/

For me, it is the use of unique/quite unique to describe something that is uncommon or rare that I object to, @DuchessNope - but like you, I wouldn't correct someone in real life.

Misunderstanding the differing between imply and infer. Happens more often that not

Difference - not differing

When I went up to live in Leeds for a little while I learned that sweets can be spice, and I had long known that the passage-way between the houses is a ginnell, but I'm not sure how to spell it.
A friend told me that using while in the sense of until is Lincolnshire but maybe it is east. Certainly my Lincolnshire-born great grandfather used it in that way :- "Frank (was) painting (the) bridge while noon." It's all so interesting.

Nope, "my husband and me", not the other way round. eg "Please talk to my husband and me about it."

"Decimated" to mean almost wiped out... Decimated means losing one in ten, no more. Drives me mad! (Ex latin scholar)

<happy sigh>

I love threads like this.

Generally/genuinely. I've noticed they get mixed up too. Not even by drunk people, slurring.

Good English is a core tenant of any good education system.

Wouldn’t that be “core tenet”…?

😁

Many of the above, especially ’slither’ for ’sliver’. Also unnecessary ‘of’: “It’s not that big of a deal.”

It’s constant on here! I want to correct it so much!

“More then” instead of “more than” always gets me.

If we’re going for public signage, any shop that has a scrawled notice in pen that uses the word “inconvenience” is more than 50% likely to have a some amazing attempt at spelling that word.

Oh, this one is so common and it irritates the hell out of me too 😁

I live in a German-speaking country. Enough said.