What are your pet punctuation, spelling, and English usage peeves?

10 replies
  • OFF TOPIC
  • |
There is no better research tool than the Internet. It enables you to find information on just about anything within seconds. It also gives bloggers and people posting on popular online forums like this the chance to present their views to a worldwide readership of thousands, millions even. This can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing. Prior to the advent of the World Wide Web, when everything we read was in hard copy form, most of what we read had to be checked by editors and sub-editors before it was allowed to go to print. The Internet, however, has all but eliminated this level of scrutiny. Anyone can post anything online regardless of how poorly written it is. What this has done has spawned a plague of misspellings and bad grammar, owing to people who don't know their way around the written language as well as they ought to copying the literary blunders of others. A classic example is disappoint. How many times have you seen it spelled dissappoint or dissapoint online? Then there is the incorrect use of loose, as in "I'm afraid you're going to loose all your money." But my biggest pet peeve is the redundant expression "the reason why." Why is the reason, and the reason is why, so only one of these words is necessary, yet even seasoned journalists often use this expression, which admittedly has been around a lot longer than the Internet.
  • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
    I think this may be the closest the groundhog and the wombat have ever come to crossing paths...

    (Reaching for the popcorn...)
    Signature
    .
    Stop by Paul's Pub - my little hangout on Facebook.

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8923203].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Brady Partridge
      Originally Posted by Paul Myers View Post

      I think this may be the closest the groundhog and the wombat have ever come to crossing paths...

      (Reaching for the popcorn...)
      (Reaching for Google's translator...)
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8923211].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
        (Reaching for Google's translator...)
        Just click the link, Brady. All will be made clear.
        Signature
        .
        Stop by Paul's Pub - my little hangout on Facebook.

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8923227].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author Brady Partridge
          Originally Posted by Paul Myers View Post

          Just click the link, Brady. All will be made clear.
          Well, my worst fears have been confirmed: I'm an 80-year-old female wombat.

          I feel deeply ashamed, though strangely liberated.

          Thanks, Paul!
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8923413].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
    Originally Posted by Brady Partridge View Post

    There is no better research tool than the Internet. It enables you to find information on just about anything within seconds. It also gives bloggers and people posting on popular online forums like this the chance to present their views to a worldwide readership of thousands, millions even. This can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing. Prior to the advent of the World Wide Web, when everything we read was in hard copy form, most of what we read had to be checked by editors and sub-editors before it was allowed to go to print. The Internet, however, has all but eliminated this level of scrutiny. Anyone can post anything online regardless of how poorly written it is. What this has done has spawned a plague of misspellings and bad grammar, owing to people who don't know their way around the written language as well as they ought to copying the literary blunders of others. A classic example is disappoint. How many times have you seen it spelled dissappoint or dissapoint online? Then there is the incorrect use of loose, as in "I'm afraid you're going to loose all your money." But my biggest pet peeve is the redundant expression "the reason why." Why is the reason, and the reason is why, so only one of these words is necessary, yet even seasoned journalists often use this expression, which admittedly has been around a lot longer than the Internet.
    Um...no offense Brady, but I can take the spelling errors a lot better than a wall of text with no paragraph breaks. That's a pretty solid little wall you have going there. :rolleyes:
    Signature

    Just when you think you've got it all figured out, someone changes the rules.

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8923362].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Brady Partridge
      Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

      Um...no offense Brady, but I can take the spelling errors a lot better than a wall of text with no paragraph breaks. That's a pretty solid little wall you have going there. :rolleyes:
      None taken.

      Sometimes after reading several marketing-type presentations of the English language here, where sentences are forced to live out their lives in isolated one-sentence paragraphs by cruel copywriters, I just have to go in the opposite direction. Granted, it may not be to everyone's taste, or most people's tastes, but it's like a breath of fresh ocean air to me.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8923478].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author laurencewins
    My pet peeves are too many to count BUT the biggest one is the care factor or lack thereof, when told that there are errors. Some people are grateful and others are complete a**e h*les about it.
    Signature

    Cheers, Laurence.
    Writer/Editor/Proofreader.

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8923367].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Brady Partridge
      Originally Posted by laurencewins View Post

      My pet peeves are too many to count BUT the biggest one is the care factor or lack thereof, when told that there are errors. Some people are grateful and others are complete a**e h*les about it.
      I know what you mean. Bleeping pedants. I just hate those bleeping bleeps.

      By the way, a comma is required between factor and or.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8923515].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Kay King
        sentences are forced to live out their lives in isolated one-sentence paragraphs
        I think of that as allowing sentences to live out in the country with plenty of space around them.
        Signature
        Saving one dog will not change the world - but the world changes forever for that one dog
        ***
        It actually doesn't take much to be considered a 'difficult woman' -
        that's why there are so many of us.
        ...jane goodall
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8923643].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author Shadowflux
          I've been doing a lot of editing for other people lately and I keep seeing them use commas with "but". Like:

          "I thought it would be hard but, I found out it was easy."

          You don't need a comma. "But" separates things already. If you want to pause, use an ellipsis: "I thought it would be hard but.... it was actually easy."

          People also start sentences with "and" (you can't, it links two things) but the worst is "that".

          "People that don't think that IM is hard don't know that it's people that make that hard."

          If you want to improve your writing, remove "that" from your writing program's dictionary. This way it shows up as a spelling error and you an see how you use it waaaay too much.
          Signature
          Native Advertising Specialist
          Dangerously Effective
          Always Discreet
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8923682].message }}

Trending Topics