Thursday, January 05, 2012

Grammer Pet peeves

By Paula Matter

I could of sworn it was’nt my turn for writing a post for the blog today; but I keep loosing track of time so I guess its my turn afterall. I have to remember Joyce and me alternate each Thursday. Gosh, me and her have been writing on Thursday’s for a long time. Of course, she’s been doing it alot longer than me.

OMG, I am totally cringeing at all the mistakes I maid in the paragraph above. Do you any idea how hard it was to ignore the red and blue squiggley lines! I mean really. Their are so numerous mistakes I can’t hardly beleive it. Its really hard to phantom all the errors; but these are mistakes I see alot of.

Irregardless of all the mistakes, I for one am glad that this post is over and I can know put it up on the blog for today. I will try and remember to come back buy today to look at any comments.

Do you’re best to find all of the mistakes I made! Than tell us your pet peeves!


23 comments:

Susan said...

I nearly emailed you about the first boo-boo to tell you you had a typo! Luckily, I kept reading. :P

At one time I gave a handout to people taking my CAN THIS MANUSCRIPT BE SAVED online workshop. It included my 10 most hated grammar mistakess.

Most of the people in the class didn't even know they were mistakes. That scared me.

I think it's a sacred duty of all writers to love grammar.

I've never liked the "It's my editor's job to find and fix my mistakes," attitude. Especially in this day of self-publishing. I'm terrified that the same people who don't think they have to know grammar are the ones who will self-publish. :P

susan meier

Annette said...

Amen, Susan.

Joyce Tremel said...

Amen to Annette's Amen.

Paula, that's pretty much what the police reports I used to have to enter into the computer looked like. And I wasn't allowed to correct the grammar mistakes! They had to be entered exactly as the officer wrote them.

C.L. Phillips said...

Brilliant! Now, back to counting the errors. :)

Ramona said...

Paula, that must have been hard to right.

Annette said...

Ramona, your probably braking out in hives just righting that won sentence.

Ouch. That really hurts!

Working Stiffs said...

Imagine writing the entire post. I shiver every time I read it.

Susan, you nailed it.

Working Stiffs said...

Oh, and I think it's very cool that Susan wanted to e-mail me. I'm curious on how many people didn't keep reading.

Jenna said...

I can't do it. I'm sorry. I start counting, and then my brain implodes.

I despise and deplore ALL grammarly mistakes, and no, that's not to say I don't ever make any. I try hard, but they creep in anyway. My biggest pet peeve, though - and I think you avoided it - is the past/past perfect. (I think. Or maybe not. I use grammar correctly most of the time, but I don't always know the technical terms.)

Anyway: I have went. I saw it in a novella I bought last week, one that's been through a couple of edits at least by a publishing house, and I cringed. It wasn't quite as blatant as "I've went" - it was "he had drank" - but nonetheless, I wanted to hurl the book at the wall. It was an ebook, and would have involved hurling the iPad, which didn't seem like a good idea, but I wanted to.

Patg said...

Do you think no one picked out the errors because we all feared we wouldn't catch them all?
:(
Patg

Working Stiffs said...

I'm sorry, Jenna! You brought up another pet peeve of mine. Good one.

Patg, excellent observation. I'm not even certain how many mistakes there are.

Working Stiffs said...

I'm hoping C.L. comes up with the number of mistakes. I stop counting after 20.

Hmmm. It's been over two hours--I hope C.L.'s okay...

Fred Connors said...

Mistakes like them drive me crazy.

Jack Hillman said...

I am remonded of a comment from one of my favorite books.
***
The Pendarvis Theory of Technology

"Everything wrong with everything is the fault of language teachers."
***
"If you teach a child that it's all right if you misspell a word occasionally, or don't always punctuate exactly correctly, then you are teaching that child that small mistakes are okay, as long as people know pretty much what is meant. This is a dangerous attitude to foster in a highly technological society, because it encourages people to think 'Well, after all, the readout is only a little bit over into the red zone. Maybe it will return to normal while I'm trying to remember which way to adjust the control. Let's see now, was that to the left or to the right . . .'"

Jack Hillman said...

And I can't spell either!

Misty MacRae said...

The post was interesting & as I read the responses, I had to giggle - The unfortunate part is that there are places where people still talk like that - I heard - I seed - we done - backer - and I know that little fact because I lived in an area like that for 14 years - my ears wanted to scream most of the time they hurt from listening to the way the Enlish ws butchered

Gina said...

Yikes, Paula. You din't even get the tittle write. Its subposed ta be "My Grandma's Pet Peeves."

Misty -
Odd grammar in informal speech doesn't bother me. In fact, I like colloquial English - and I have heared a lot of it!

NL Gassert said...

Funny post. Loved it. Boy, that had to be difficult to ignore. My pet peeves include "should of/could of" instead of "should have/could have." And then there are always those stray apostrophes, especially on business signs. UGH. The most surprising stray was on an election billboard recently: Don’t reelect em’

Nadja

word verification: dissia (a female dissing someone)

Anonymous said...

My pet peeve is it's and its. Makes my skin crawl.

Rebecca said...

You had me at "grammer." I taught freshman writing for thirty years. That is right--thirty (30). Don't let your blood pressure go out of control--laughter is best. I do worry when some NPR reporters (or are they readers?) use "literally" to mean "actually" and "begs the question" when they mean "raises the question." But by far my biggest gripe is the use of "unbelievable " for "extraordinary" or "amazing."

Dan Persinger said...

I'd be interested in seeing your corrected version.

Anyway, my pet peeve is probably American English writers using UK placements for their commas and periods with quotation marks . . . British style makes more sense, but that's a moot point. Even worse--when they mix 'n match them and use BOTH styles in the same work.

Anonymous said...

I count 20 befor my hed inploaded.

My pet peeve is who vs. that. I know that that (heh!) is acceptable - heck, 99 out of 100 politicians use it - but, embarrassed, I usally drop my eyes.

Where I'm fairly certain they'll get dirty or stepped on (unless I sweep the room with my eyes, first).

Best,
Deni Dietz, editor and author, who can't comment unless she signs in as anonymous - sigh.

Earl Staggs said...

Paula, that was both hilarious and brilliant. I'm lucky to be one of the fortunate ones who never make misteaks.