The Grammar Nazi in You!

[Euryalus]

Another that comes to mind, the misuse of 'ironic' to mean anything that's odd or coincidental rather than it's actual tighter meaning. I have a friend who does this and it's very annoying. No, us meeting on the way back to my house on the day we were scheduled to meet at my house later is just a lucky coincidence, not irony!

The ironic one doesn't annoy me so much as it confuses me. For most of my life people around me have used it correctly, so when all of the sudden I got to collegr and people started using it to mean coincidence or something funny it messed with me.

Person: "Isn't it so ironic that I saw Katie McExample in Starbuck's the other day?"

Me: "...No? She likes caramel macchiato and you both live in the same area and have similar morning schedule's. That's not unexpected at all. It's not even weird."

When someone writes "of" instead of "have" I want to throttle something.

*Snip*

Also, while I don't much like it myself, there is a reason for kitty-corner.

catty-cornered (adj., adv.)1838,
earlier cater-cornered (1835, American English), from now-obsolete cater "to set or move diagonally" (1570s), from Middle French catre "four," from Latin quattuor.

From there it was infantilized(?) to "kitty."

There are a lot of words that seem to end bastardized along the way like that it seems.

Regardless of whether its history makes sense though, I still hate how it sounds xD

 

[Padwolf]

When people use "were" instead of "We're". Would it kill you to add the apostrophe? Would it really do any harm to put it in? It would save a lot of confusion and would stop my eyes from bleeding.

The typical stuff, too. People using "Your" instead of "You're." And the whole using letters in the place of words. Y is a letter. It is not a word. It wouldn't kill people to take a split second to put a W and a H in front of it. Also sometimes in text I see people using an abbreviated word that's actually longer than the original word.

Also the whole "then" and "than" thing. It's not that hard! And please, commas are not the spawn of the devil, they can be used and should be used.

 

[Euryalus]

I've got a lot of these. Lots of relatives in fun places where people don't know how to talk.

I hear people say "Sahl" instead of "saw," like "Yeah, I sahl her walkin' across the street."

I occasionally say it like that. I think I picked it up from my Uncle. He's pretty rural.

I also say Drawl and Drawling instead of Draw and Drawing sometimes.

It makes even me cringe.

Melk. "Do me a favor, pour me a glass of melk." Disgusting. Sounds like some hybrid of MILK and a mucous substance.

I swear this is a Northern US thing.

I'd never heard before I went to Michigan.

It's weird. They also say pitcher instead of picture.

 

[Euryalus]

-snip-

I usually try to go back over and proofread mistakes like that in writing, but I figured it'd be funnier if I didn't this time around.

I always have a few of those and this thread seemed like the appropriate place for people to rag on me for it xD

 

[King of Asgaard]

-snip-

I usually try to go back over and proofread mistakes like that in writing, but I figured it'd be funnier if I didn't this time around.

I always have a few of those and this thread seemed like the appropriate place for people to rag on me for it xD

I figured it was deliberate on your part, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to be a smartass.

 

[Woiminkle]

on accident.

Not technically incorrect but it should be. It sounds like something a toddler who hasn't learned to speak properly yet would say. If you want to sound like a mentally competent adult, then it's "by accident"

 

[Barbas]

(Heinous American patois).

Here's one that gets me: "Hey, man, pass me that bag of peanits."

"Yeah, no prob-...what did you say?"

Spoiler: This cannot stand.

(Grievance).

I can't stand it when people do things like that by purpose!

 

[Kaland]

Well, English isn't my mother tongue so I probably make a ton of mistakes myself. However, it still grinds my gears a tiny bit when I see your/you're, their/they're/there, a lot/alot repeatedly confused with each other. Furthermore we have wrong usage of affect/effect, 'would of' instead of 'would have', grammar misspelled as grammer.

In my mother tongue(Norwegian), there are two separate words for 'when' depending on whether it's when something will happen(når) or when something happened(da). A lot of people say the future word for when in cases where they should use the past word for when. Ugh!!! People also tend to confuse the conjunction and(og) with the Norwegian equivalent of the particle to(å) (as in the to in front of 'to eat' etc.)

I try not to correct people, unless I think that they'd be interested in knowing that they're typing wrong.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Typos are common among folk who write persistently. There's a reason why pro's pay editors to be grammar nazis, so they don't spend hours typing their own mistakes over. Over 1000 page novel? You haven't got the ending down because you're stuck on grammar mistakes in the first 6 chapters?
XD
So it doesn't really bother me all that much taking into account English isn't everyone's first language. But yeah I'd be a bit happier if more people knew the difference between homonyms and how they're used.

 

[JimB]

Honestly? "Grammar Nazi" is one of my biggest pet peeves. A Nazi is not a strict person; a Nazi is a member of a fascist, racist, genocide-promoting political party. Saying my distaste for people who don't know the difference between "of" and "have" makes me a valid target for comparison to someone who participated in or at least endorses the Holocaust makes my foot itch to kick someone in the nuts.

 

[Nowhere Man]

When people spell story "arch" instead of story "arc". That's a biggie for me. Also "could care less" instead of "couldn't care less". There's plenty of others but those are at the top of my list currently. But I also can't stand when people dismiss other people's arguments or opinions because of a few grammatical errors. That's being elitist and petty considering the internet is global and English isn't everyone's first language. I see this all the time in Disqus.

 

[shootthebandit]

I dont really mind as long as people understand what you are saying. Im not very good at writing because I have a tendency to write the way I speak, so naturally I make plenty of mistakes

Communication is simply about sharing information or an idea with another. If the other person understands what you said then I really dont have a problem however if u tok or rite lyk dis den I aint gunna get wot u iz tryin to say bruv....u get me?

 

[Euryalus]

When people use "were" instead of "We're". Would it kill you to add the apostrophe? Would it really do any harm to put it in? It would save a lot of confusion and would stop my eyes from bleeding.

I'll bet it comes from the same place as the 've/of mistake. I know a lot of people who pronounce We're and were the same.

 

[BaronVH]

When the 'T' is pronounced in 'often.' The T is like the D in Django. It is silent. Obviously, I have many others if something so insignificant as that bothers me; however, that is my irrational one.

 

[BaronVH]

When people spell judgment (correct), as "judgement."

Except, I got called on it the other day, with a coworker suggesting that the two are both acceptable spellings. Nonsense, I retorted, and I Googled it to show I was right. Except Google told me that both are common spelling and generally acceptable, even if Merriam-Webster strongly favors "judgment." 10 years ago "judgement" was widely regarded as a misspelling but I guess standards are falling.

I guess I'll let this one go.

I had a college professor that would deduct 10 points for every spelling of 'judgement.' If you got every question correct, but spelled 'judgement' five times, you flunked the exam.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

The one that really gets me, just because otherwise decent people seem to use it with such regularity, writing 'definitely' as 'defiantly'. I honestly cannot believe how common this is. Like when I first discovered some people don't like mushrooms. You'd never know to look at the rest of their grammar, but then wham, defiantly. Why.

And somewhat the plural of 'f's. Like knives and rooves and dwarves. Increasingly doesn't seem to be a thing people do anymore.

 

[hermes]

Not a grammar nazi at all. Probably because English is not my first language (it is not even my second), but I tend to be pretty tolerant of other people mistakes. It has to be a really awfully constructed sentence to make me even notice it.

Then again, I tend to be pretty tolerant of people that use my language (Spanish) improperly, specially if they are not native speakers; and my grammar is nothing to be proud of.

 

[Flames66]

People that use then instead of than, I've noticed this quite a bit on the internet. Everytime I see it it just makes me want to say "Your such a fucking idiot, go back to school". It makes me wonder how they're parents feel knowing that they've raised such a moron.

I agree. I generally discount the opinion of whoever I see making this error.

 

[MiskWisk]

I've been spending more time on the Internet lately and have been getting better at containing my rage over this. It also helps that I work in a warehouse with a very diverse range of people so being a grammar nazi to the very large polish rugby player is bordering on suicidal so... yeah, kind of learnt to hold my tongue.

That said, anyone screws up by typing:
1. "Defiantly" instead of "Definitely"
2. "Rouge" instead of "Rogue"
Is liable to have me go on a table flipping rampage. Seriously people, they aren't homonyms! Hell, they aren't even synonyms! Stop confusing the damned things!

 

[Euryalus]

When the 'T' is pronounced in 'often.' The T is like the D in Django. It is silent. Obviously, I have many others if something so insignificant as that bothers me; however, that is my irrational one.

Everyone I know pronounces it with the T. That's how it was originally said anyway. The silent t came later.

This can be seen in Old English and German today with the word "oft."

I had a college professor that would deduct 10 points for every spelling of 'judgement.' If you got every question correct, but spelled 'judgement' five times, you flunked the exam.

I irrationally hate that guy already xD

Even more than I do grammar and spelling mistakes.