A few common grammatical errors that drive me up the bloomin' wall!

Call me a grammar whore. I really don't care. I bet there's a few of you out there who feel the same way about these...

"Irregardless" is not a word: It's regardless - the suffix 'less' does the trick just fine, thank you. No need to add the extra 'irr.'

If you are referring to a possibility, use the subjunctive "were": For instance, "If I WERE you..." not "If I WAS you..."

And, given my area of study for the last 15 years, this is especially irritating: It's not "the media is." "Media" is a PLURAL NOUN, the singular being "medium," especially when you're tossing out the naive Chomskian dictum of "The corporate controlled media ARE conspiring to undermine democracy," etc. etc. etc. Sorry, but they don't all work together as a singular cabal that meet once a month and plot government propaganda, okay? So there's no need to refer to the media in the singular; there happen to be many of them.

Do you have any grammatical faux pas that annoy you?

i'd leave the media alone Irregardless of your personal feelings

You grammatical ingrate! ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)

Pahk The Cah In Hahvahd Yahd

well THEY do. i'm not originally from here. ;)

so I think what you said was totally wicked, yah?

i want to KILL everyone here who says that. and there are PLENTY! :eyes:

It comes out as, "So don' I...?" Jeesh. I have more north in me than I suspected. I also have a nasty habit of saying, "Ya' guys..."

:D

you bitch about grammar and you SAY THAT?????1111

'get a rope'

I can't stop my accent, a'right? So get in ya' cah an stahp bahlin', okay?

you are TOAST fucker :rofl:

You seem to be forgetting your punctuation, ya fuckah!

i'm not originally FROM here! :rofl:

Well ya bettah learn how to pahk your insults somewhere else, a'right? ;) ;) ;)

On edit: Sorry if I'm giving you too hahd a time, a'right?

for cryin' out loud or fer cryin' out loud. Apparently, that is how one tells the difference between northerners and southerners. I say it southern and am in fact from the south. Amusing.

I learned to speak, read, and write in Maine, but I resided in Texas for 18 years thereafter. I do this weird curl on that word: "foruh." I can't figure out if that's northern or southern. I also pronounce "out" and "about" like a Canadian. I really don't get that, either. :shrug:

On edit: Okay, this is getting stranger... how do you say, "Is that for real?" I say this a lot, but in this case I say, "Is that fuh re-uhl?" That sounds more Yankee.

do you pronounce out and about as owt and abowt or oot and aboot? Two different Canadian pronunciations. I pronounce the other one "fer" which is the southern pronunciation, compliments of 20+ years in Texas.

Edited fer lost question mark. ;)

"out" comes out as "ah-oot..." not "oot" because I think that sounds Scottish, actually. I also hit "Coke" like this "Ko-ook."

(God, you must think I'm a bit of a freak after this... HA!)

that is a better way of expressing the first pronunciation so you say it like the Vancouverites rather than the Ontarians (I have no idea if that's how they refer to themselves). And yes, you are a freak. But I'm keeping up so what does that say about me? ;)

If I had picked up any Canadian accent at all, I think it would have come from Quebec (next to Maine) than from Ontario or especially Alberta (but those in Quebec just speak Quebecois, oui?)

For me anything with an -ar, -er, or -or exposes my northern regionalism... but how in the hell did I pick that up, and didn't pick up a Texas accent? I lived in Maine from age 2 to age 7, and in Texas from age 7 to age 24. What the hey???

(I'm glad to know that I have a co-conspirator in my freakiness. ;))

My latest pet peeve is the seemingly universal use of "Where are you at?" I can't figure out why people feel the need to tack on an extra word - what ever happened to, "Where are you?"

Incorrect: "Where are you at?"

Correct:"Where are you at, asshole?"

Thanks for that one!

Their loosers anyway.

Jeesh do those asses need help with writing. ;)

They'd better find a new site manager: not only is navigating their site a real hell, but they obviously need an automatic spell and grammar checker. Have a little self respect, freepers, okay? If you're going to insist that all immigrants speak English, why don't you learn how to write it, at least. Geesh!

:hide:

Hrmmm... okay, Oeditpus, let's use the amazing DU spell check feature:

copyediting

copy-editing

Ahhh... Confucius Spell Checker say, "The word contains a hyphen between the y and the e." I stand corrected. 'Tis my grammatical struggle, my dear Oeditpus.

But I do it all the time.

Does that count?

phenomena and criteria are also plurals. I see them used as singular fairly frequently.

;)

I asked both of my partners separately how to spell this word. One got it right and one spelled it wrong and they are both highly intelligent men. It's lose and loose. So many people use loose when they mean lose. Don't lose your loose change (something I was taught in grade school to help me remember).

Literally. A lot is two words and it makes me crazy when people turn it into a single word that isn't a word. Or use 'allot' which is a word but hardly interchangeable. I rarely say anything but it's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.

I used to be a transcriber at a court reporting firm, and if I had a dollar for every person who used "myself" as a subject or direct object, I would probably be able to pay off my credit card. I cannot think of anything else specific right now, but I'm sure I'll come up with some eventually.

I have a few spelling issues: when did people start spelling "definitely" with an "a"?

And why can't people tell the difference between a possessive pronoun and a contraction?

I always have wondered this.

and apparently trying to either disprove the "dumb jock" theory (which typically has the opposite result) or to seem less of an egoist by avoiding use of "I" and "me."

In the days when NBC carried baseball games, they'd occasionally have a player read the starting lineups. I once heard a guy say, "Batting fifth is myself."

:crazy:

Go DOWN, m'dear. Go DOWN. :rofl:

:)

I hear ya on the regardless...irregardless is big around here.

Here's another one from redneck Indiana....

"I seen that" ....I seen that on teevee last night!!

or any other constructions that ignore the existence of the past participe. ("I have gone," "I could have drunk," "I haven't eaten")

2. Misuse of "lie" and "lay"

If you're putting yourself in a horizontal position, that's "lie."

"I'm going to lie down for a while."
"Lie back and relax."
"Lie down, you stupid dog."
"Who's that lying on the couch?"

The past tense is "lay."
"I lay down for a while."
"I lay back and relaxed."
"The dog lay down when I ordered him to."
"Who lay on the couch?"

If you put someone or something else in a horizontal position, that's "lay"

"I'm going to lay the baby down for a nap."
"Lay the cover back."
"Lay the dead body on the slab."
"Lay the packages on the couch."

The past tense is "laid."

"I laid the baby down for a nap."
"I laid the cover back."
"I laid the dead body on the slab."
"I laid the packages on the couch."

I've almost given up on this, but I grew up in a family where everyone used them correctly, and I refuse to give in to the majority. This distinction fell apart in the 1970s, thanks to songs such as "Lay Lady Lay," "Won't You Lay with Me in a Field of Stone" and "Lay Down Lay Down." Before that, only th emost uneducated people confused the two words.

3. "between you and I" "him and me did it" or any other instances of pronoun abuse

If it's the subject of the verb, it's I, he, she, we, they.

If it's the object of a preposition or verb, it's me, him, her, us, them.

"She and I both like Jude Law."
"He and I can't agree on this matter."
"We and they want to go to Europe."
"You and I will never agree."

"Jude Law signed autographs for her and me."
"This dispute between him and me has gone on too long."
"There's nothing left for us or them."
"This dispute between you and me has gone on too long."