ITT, a Grammar Nazi on common grammar mistakes

[Llil]

I don't, however, let myself leave out a comma where there should be one like right after the "one" in this sentence.

This might be deliberate, but shouldn't there be an extra comma in that sentence?

Anyway, I sometimes feel like I use too many commas. I don't remember any of the rules about the use of commas, in English or in Finnish, I just use them when it feels right.

 

[intheweeds]

-snip-

For what it's worth, I agree.
You would love this article.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/9-words-youre-confusing-with-other-words/

Yeah, yeah, I know, but it's good!

 

[intheweeds]

I find punctuation the hardest, personally. I don't really know when to use colons, semicolons, or dashes. I also have a problem with commas. In Dutch there are a bunch of rules for comma use, but although it is similar to English, it seems that the rules for commas are different. For instance, I'm fairly sure I used more commas in that last sentence than most people would.

You used exactly how many commas I would have used in English. They are put wherever you would normally throw a small pause in speech so as to be understood. It's pretty intuitive if your trying at all. If you are using Dutch rules in your post, I would gather the rules are pretty similar based on your usage.

 

[Neverhoodian]

I won't lie, learning proper spelling and grammar for the English language is hard. Hell, it's my native tongue and I attended Honors English classes in high school, yet I still get caught up on its finer points from time to time. Still, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to utilize proper spelling and punctuation if you can help it.

One of my biggest pet peeves is the widespread use of the word "he" an an onomatopoeia for giggling. "He" refers to a person or animal that is male. If you want to convey giggling, the proper way is "hee hee hee," not "he he he" (or, God forbid, "hehehe").

I think modern technology is going to radically change many aspects of the English language. Indeed, it already has in many ways, such as the ever-increasing use of acronyms like "lol," "omg," and "wtf" in common vernacular (to say nothing of words and phrases like "Googling" for something, or "tweeting" a message).

 

[Phlakes]

I let myself write fragmented sentences. Like this. But only for emphasis.

Yes, I've noticed you do. How is it YOU are allowed to break rules and not others?
Sure, I'm being nitpicky, but if you want to act like a grammar expert, get it right.

I knew someone wasn't going to read the entire paragraph-

I'm not saying everyone should write flawlessly like professional authors, but most of the mistakes I've brought up are actual, technical mistakes. What I go by is "casual but correct". I let myself write fragmented sentences. Like this. But only for emphasis. I don't, however, let myself leave out a comma where there should be one like right after the "one" in this sentence. Mistakes like saying "they're table is big" are not correct or casual, just wrong. Also, thank you if you've read this far. I can't wait to see how many people call me out on things that are explained in this paragraph.

But yeah, the "it come down" is just a mistake. Fixing it now.

 

[Professor Lupin Madblood]

ROFL, you people REALLY think English is hard? Just try some... fuck, ANY other language, every single one is harder with a billion more rules.

I call BS on this.

Fluent English is one of the hardest things to learn for all speakers of alphabetised languages. German, on the other hand, is one of the easiest. A small number of pronunciation rules, a shit load of grammatical rules, the vocab and you're away.

English has the following: vocabulary rules (plus exceptions); grammatical rules (plus exceptions); pronunciation rules (plus exceptions); spelling rules (plus exceptions); contextual use of synonyms (plus exceptions) etc. English is nothing but exceptions to the rules that compose it. Combined with a vocabulary of roughly three hundred thousand words and you have a language that is ultimately one of the most difficult to master and in some ways, especially for native speakers. While I personally write and speak English passably, I am by no means capable of explaining its myriad of intricacies and foibles (of which English has far more than any other language, alphabetised or otherwise).

Three hundred thousand words? Oh, how quaint.

I believe we're hovering at just under a million now, which makes English the largest language in the world.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Three hundred thousand words? Oh, how quaint.

I believe we're hovering at just under a million now, which makes English the largest language in the world.

I suppose I failed to stipulate that our vocabulary is three hundred thousand without the following: technical language; slang; multiple word classes; and foreign transliterations used in common parlance but not officially loan words. Look in a dictionary and the entry count would be about the three hundred thousand mark.

However, include all that extraneous stuff, and yeah, we'd have a fuck off massive vocabulary and genuinely dwarfs every other language's.

 

[Phlakes]

I let myself write fragmented sentences. Like this. But only for emphasis.

Yes, I've noticed you do. How is it YOU are allowed to break rules and not others?
Sure, I'm being nitpicky, but if you want to act like a grammar expert, get it right.

I knew someone wasn't going to read the entire paragraph-

Oh I read the entire paragraph. You gave no valid excuses. What you said was "my mistakes are ok because I think I have a good excuse but other people's choices aren't ok in your mind".

You also just ended a sentance with a hyphan instead of a period.

I don't know if you're just trying to be argumentative, but I don't care.

Also, it's "sentence" and "hyphen"...

 

[spartan231490]

snip

Homophones:

This [http://learnyourdamnhomophones.com/] is a good, if slightly frank guide on homophones. A few highlights-

"Loose" and "lose". If your losing a game, it's one "o". If your shoelace is loose, it's two. You could use a stupid "if you lose, lose an 'o'" sort of thing, but I won't do that to you here.

"Your" and "you're". "You're" is a contraction for "you are". "Your" is possessive. Just remember that.

"Than" and "then". "Than" is comparative, "then" is not.

"Their/they're/there". "There" is a location. "It's over there". "They're" is a contraction for "they are". "Their" is possessive. If you just remember two, you'll get the other one.

"Too" and "to". "Too" is a synonym for "exceedingly" and "also". "To" is a preposition, as in "I went to the store". Also, I really shouldn't have to say this, but "two" is a number.
snip

Ok, clarification homophones. Are you sure that "Loose" and "Lose" are homophones? They aren't pronounced the same. "Loose" ends in an S sound, and "Lose" ends in a Z sound.
Same question for "Than" and "Then". It might just be me, but I pronounce them differently, namely "Than" has an A sound and "Then" has an E sound.

Also, I would say that most of your points don't really matter. A post is still easy to read and understand if a person uses incorrect homophones and no apostrophes; and I'm not even entirely sure you can say that could of and should of and would of are wrong, they are becoming vernacular and languages do change over time. There are a great many vernacular phrases that are more than acceptable in common speech that are grammatically incorrect. Like "Hop In," "See you," and ending sentences in prepositions.

However, punctuation is crucial. Reading even one small paragraph with poor punctuation is literally painful, and it almost guarantees that you will be misunderstood. Punctuation is crucial to communication. It's no great crime if you miss a comma, or use a period instead of a question mark once in a while, but at least try. It doesn't need to be perfect grammar school punctuation, but you need to have some punctuation or no one will be able to understand you.

 

[Odbarc]

I often type your when I should be spelling you're. I know this and I overlook the mistake. It's an indirect action of my subconscious mind when I type.
I always strive for self improvement, so any mistakes I find myself making a lot, I tend to correct. One step at a time.

 

[JMeganSnow]

I hate people misusing double negatives as in, "I didn't do nothing" when they mean "I didn't do anything".

Yes, but if you truly didn't do ANYTHING, you'd be dead. So they really didn't do nothing.

 

[Ninonybox_v1legacy]

I hate people misusing double negatives as in, "I didn't do nothing" when they mean "I didn't do anything".

you think that's bad, my mother once used a triple negative.....I didn't even know that was possible.

 

[Phlakes]

Ok, clarification homophones. Are you sure that "Loose" and "Lose" are homophones? They aren't pronounced the same. "Loose" ends in an S sound, and "Lose" ends in a Z sound.
Same question for "Than" and "Then". It might just be me, but I pronounce them differently, namely "Than" has an A sound and "Then" has an E sound.

Yeah, explained here-

Are those examples really homophones?

'Loose' has a harder 's' sound than 'lose', 'than' and 'then' should never sound similar in speech for obvious reasons while 'too' has a generally higher intonation than 'to'. *shrug* The others, I concede, and I'm fairly certain there are a lot of others.

Eh, they're close enough. I guess it's better to have them in a semi-related section rather than drifting off out of context.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

If your losing a game, it's one "o".

"Your" and "you're". "You're" is a contraction for "you are". "Your" is possessive. Just remember that.

Seems you made a little mistake there. Is that extra hard for a self-proclaimed grammar Nazi?
Anyway, the difference betwee Your and You're is my pet peeve. The rules are roughly the same in Dutch -"jouw" and "jou"- and it pisses me off when people just use your/jou everywhere for convenience sake or because they're stupid...

 

[Avistew]

One thing that bugs me is words like "ninja'd". I honestly have no idea what to do with that shit. It's not an actual word and I don't think there are any similar examples, but it seems like it should just be "ninjad", but because it isn't a real word that doesn't seem right. Maybe someone knows. 'Cause I don't.

I think it's supposed to be a contraction of "ninja"+"-ed", because "ninjaed" looked weird and "ninjad" is just not how past works.

"Loose" and "lose".

These are NOT homophones. "Loose" is pronounced with a "S" sound as in "sum". "Lose" is pronounced with a "Z" sound as in "zoo".

Le Punctuation:

"Punctuation" (or rather, "ponctuation") is feminine in French. You'd use "la", not "le".

And that's pretty much it.

One think that annoys me is when people don't seem to realise what letters stand for and become redudant. There is not reason to say "Automated Teller Machine machine" or "Personal Identification Number number" or "Universal Product Code code" or "International Standard Book Number number."
It happens so often, it makes me wonder what people think they're saying. When letters stand for something, it's a shorter way to say that thing. It's like you're saying the whole phrase. So no need to repeat the last word.
At least people aren't saying "AIDS syndrome" or "DNA acid" so I guess some of them are still safe

EDIT: I see you've addressed the "not homophones" thing. Still, I think in the case of "loose" and "lose" it's not about being homophones like other words. "Loose" isn't that common. It's a case of people thinking "It's an 'oo' sound, it has to be written with two Os." And I think it's quite a different reasoning leading to the mistake, as a result, than for the other homophones you've mentioned.
That's why people also spell "looser" for "loser" when, honestly, I'm not sure there is even such a thing as a "looser", and if there is, there is no reason for it to come up in everyday conversation.

 

[Phlakes]

One thing that bugs me is words like "ninja'd". I honestly have no idea what to do with that shit. It's not an actual word and I don't think there are any similar examples, but it seems like it should just be "ninjad", but because it isn't a real word that doesn't seem right. Maybe someone knows. 'Cause I don't.

I think it's supposed to be a contraction of "ninja"+"-ed", because "ninjaed" looked weird and "ninjad" is just not how past works.

That makes sense. I'll probably use that as an explanation if I ever need to.

"Loose" and "lose".

These are NOT homophones. "Loose" is pronounced with a "S" sound as in "sum". "Lose" is pronounced with a "Z" sound as in "zoo".

Yeah, that's explained here-

Are those examples really homophones?

'Loose' has a harder 's' sound than 'lose', 'than' and 'then' should never sound similar in speech for obvious reasons while 'too' has a generally higher intonation than 'to'. *shrug* The others, I concede, and I'm fairly certain there are a lot of others.

Eh, they're close enough. I guess it's better to have them in a semi-related section rather than drifting off out of context.

Le Punctuation:

"Punctuation" (or rather, "ponctuation") is feminine in French. You'd use "la", not "le".

...I don't know any French, but "le _____" is an internet thing. Mostly in those four-panel trollface comics.

 

[Phlakes]

If your losing a game, it's one "o".

"Your" and "you're". "You're" is a contraction for "you are". "Your" is possessive. Just remember that.

Seems you made a little mistake there. Is that extra hard for a self-proclaimed grammar Nazi?

Oh god, I did... Let me pull my head off my desk and fix that. I was tired and angry, so it's not surprising I did something like that.

 

[Avistew]

...I don't know any French, but "le _____" is an internet thing. Mostly in those four-panel trollface comics.

Fair enough, but using feminine for masculine or vice-versa is a mistake too, and in a grammar nazi thread it just looks off to me. It could be because I'm a grammar nazi in both languages of course.

I also edited my post about "loose" and "lose" but I guess you were already writing a reply.

 

[Phlakes]

Overall, you... kinda missed the point on a lot of this. You seemed to address only the most simple grammar rules, which most people understand anyway - they just choose not to use them.

Not really. I've seen a lot of otherwise correct posts with a "defiantly" or a mixed up homophone, and even if it's a small number of people, it helps to remind them. A lot of mistakes seem to spread, too, where someone sees it written incorrectly and starts to think that's how it should be written. So for the people who actually care, they can stop them from spreading if they realize they've been doing something wrong.