Grammar Police (What ticks you off?)

[Chrysippus]

Spelling errors based on homophony:

• "A deep-seeded habit" (deep-seated)
• "Here, here!" (hear, hear)
• "Straightjacket." (straitjacket--"strait" meaning "narrow" or "tight")

oh yeah!
1. the point is mute
2. max nix

 

[palakaorion]

Verbing nouns and nouning verbs.

Example of an actual sentence heard at work last week: "We need to dialog about the ask." No. This is not George Orwell's 1984.

 

[twoton]

Verbing nouns and nouning verbs.

Example of an actual sentence heard at work last week: "We need to dialog about the ask." No. This is not George Orwell's 1984.

You mean like "effort"?

"We need more info on Tom Brady's suspension," the ESPN producer said.
"George is efforting it," came the reply.

 

[twoton]

The mix up of leave and let. My mother-in-law has gotten bad with it.

"We left Twoton know we ordered pizza." Of course, it should be, "We LET Twoton know..."

She also gets bad and badly wrong. "I feel badly about not ordering the pizza sooner." Of course, it should be, "I feel BAD about not ordering. . ."

 

[Chrysippus]

The mix up of leave and let. My mother-in-law has gotten bad with it.

"We left Twoton know we ordered pizza." Of course, it should be, "We LET Twoton know..."

She also gets bad and badly wrong. "I feel badly about not ordering the pizza sooner." Of course, it should be, "I feel BAD about not ordering. . ."

Some people having had botox actually do feel badly

 

[palakaorion]

You mean like "effort"?

"We need more info on Tom Brady's suspension," the ESPN producer said.
"George is efforting it," came the reply.

15 yards for improper gerund-ization.

 

[twoton]

Another ESPN example: chalk. WTF is chalk?

It comes up every NCAA March Madness tournament. I know what they mean by chalk. "Gonzaga has a lot of chalk," means Gonzaga is expected to be on the chalkboard a long way into the tournament, presumably with its name written in chalk.

But seriously? Chalk? The only thing worse is when the couch-jocks who watch too much ESPN start using "chalk" as if they've earned the right.

Dammit.

 

[Fuzzy_]

Verbing nouns and nouning verbs.

To be fair, veribification is fairly arbitrary. We can say "he sailed to town," "he bicycled to town," "he trucked to town," but not "he trained to town."

 

[palakaorion]

To be fair, veribification is fairly arbitrary. We can say "he sailed to town," "he bicycled to town," "he trucked to town," but not "he trained to town."

"To sail" and "to bicycle" are valid infinitive forms as used. "To truck" is incorrectly used in the sa manner as "to train" in your example.

I'm MC Grammar.

 

[palakaorion]

"To sail" and "to bicycle" are valid infinitive forms as used. "To truck" is incorrectly used in the sa manner as "to train" in your example.

I'm MC Grammar.

Same manner.

 

[328982]

The mix up of leave and let. My mother-in-law has gotten bad with it.

"We left Twoton know we ordered pizza." Of course, it should be, "We LET Twoton know..."

She also gets bad and badly wrong. "I feel badly about not ordering the pizza sooner." Of course, it should be, "I feel BAD about not ordering. . ."

Conversely, people often say 'good' or 'bad' instead of 'well' or 'badly', as in 'I played good/bad today' e.g. in a tennis match.

 

[328982]

It annoys me that 'of which' is now often used instead of just 'which' and seems to be almost accepted usage. I think because it sounds 'proper' and a bit posher. As in:

"I mean all of these things can/should be discussed with a doctor. Of which i am not."

Or:

'We went to that new restaurant, of which we really enjoyed"

 

[328982]

Spelling errors based on homophony:

• "A deep-seeded habit" (deep-seated)
• "Here, here!" (hear, hear)
• "Straightjacket." (straitjacket--"strait" meaning "narrow" or "tight")

Or when it's a requirement of a hook-up that one be 'discrete'.

 

[Chrysippus]

1.)
One of my delights is adjectives that do not admit to comparison.
'Straight'. It is or it isn't--there is no straighter or straightest.
The most interesting one is in the preamble to the US constitution: a more 'perfect' union.
If something is perfect, it can't be more or less so.
Another is 'correct'.
But the one that makes me smile the most is 'unique'.
I love it when someone uses phrases like 'very unique' or 'most unique'.
Speaking of 'correct', there may be more than one mathematical proof/solution; the one that is shortest
is often described as an elegant solution.

2.)
I used to love teaching in the seventies and eighties (ah, yesteryear...)
Some of more memorable phrases are these:
'in reality,'
'what Shakespeare is trying to say', or
'what Aeschylus meant was'.

3.) and misreading:
One student, after reading that Melanthios was punished thus Book XXII of the Odyssey,

(they cut off, with pitiless bronze, his nose and and his ears,
tore off his privates and gave them to the dogs to feast upon,
and lopped off his hands and feet, in fury of anger)

asked 'how could he lope off with no feet?. Sigh. I wonder where that student is today.
At least some in the class got a good laugh out of it.

 

[Calboner]

It annoys me that 'of which' is now often used instead of just 'which' and seems to be almost accepted usage. I think because it sounds 'proper' and a bit posher. As in:

"I mean all of these things can/should be discussed with a doctor. Of which i am not."

Or:

'We went to that new restaurant, of which we really enjoyed"

I have encountered such verbal abortions a few times, and hoped that they were rare aberrations. Alas, it seems not.

While we're on the subject of superfluous prepositions with relative clauses, we should not forget the use of preposition-with-relative pronoun with the same preposition repeated superfluously at the end of the phrase. E.g., "It's the main purpose for which I came here for." "He's the person to whom I wished to speak to."

I once heard a Ph.D. candidate say at her doctoral examination (in a prominent department of a university of high standing), "It is an ideal toward which to aspire to."

 

[Browsing]

Not sure if this was posted already but "irregardless" makes me cringe. My boss said it in a meeting and we all dropped our heads in shame because she said it more than once

 

[17571]

"Your" in place of "You're".

Hate it!

 

[palakaorion]

Apostrophe atrocities.

 

[AlteredEgo]

This may already have been submitted. However, a peeve of mine is 'people that'. People who write 'people that' instead of people who(m) are making my teeth itch.

One should write or say, "There were those people whom she supported, and those people who supported her."

 

[twoton]

I mentioned this one before, probably: his-self and their-selves.

When people use "I" when they should use "me."

"It happened to him and I."

"This is a present from George and I."