What are your Grammar Pet Peeves?
September 7th, 2008Or perhaps I should say, “what are your grammatical pet peeves?” I’m not perfect, and I know I make accidental spelling and grammar errors all the time. I’ve probably even violated my greatest pet peeves. They bother me just as much when I see that I have done them. That doesn’t stop me from being critical of grammatical errors when I see them elsewhere!
These are my two biggest ones:
Ending a sentence with a preposition: This one drives me crazy mostly when I’m writing. Sometimes I just cannot figure out how to rephrase the sentence in order to avoid it. I have noticed that this rule does not seem to be quite as strict anymore as I see it EVERYWHERE. I notice it pretty much every time. Most recently, I noticed that Stephen King used it often in Duma Key. If I ever do end a sentence with a preposition, I can assure you that I gave it a lot of thought before saying, “screw it!” I admit that I cheat this one to make myself feel better. If I can’t figure out how to rephrase it (or I’m just feeling lazy), then I end up adding an adverb or some other word (which probably makes it worse). For example, instead of saying “I heard you stopped by” I might say “I heard you stopped by previously” or “I heard you stopped by yesterday.” As long as that preposition does not appear at the end of the sentence, I’m happy.
Misuse of affect and effect: For some reason, this is another one of my biggest pet peeves. Perhaps it is because I see it ALL THE TIME with my job. It’s not that hard. Generally, affect is a verb and effect is a noun (except in this sentence where they are both nouns, ha). Yes, there are exceptions, but this clears up most use cases.
September 7th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
number vs. amount (like saying “We have a huge amount of toys in our playroom” rather than correctly saying “We have a huge number of toys”)
fewer vs. less – goes along with the one above.
That’s probably my biggest pet peeve… I notice it on the news all the time! I have a hard time with the preposition at the end of a sentence too.
September 9th, 2008 at 5:31 am
I have many but the one that comes to mind is loose vs. lose. It’s usually “loose” used as “lose”, such as “I hate loosing”, or “I loose track of time”.
I’m with you on ending a sentence with a preposition! I used to go nuts about it and I think I say screw it more often than I used to (example of me saying ‘screw it!).
Which brings another one: to vs. too. That one is more forgivable, but if *I* do it, I CRINGE!
If I think of more, I’ll follow up with it. I know there are a lot (a lot vs. alot).
September 9th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
I’m pretty sure I’m guilty of yours, Ann! When I first read it, I thought, “what’s wrong with that?” HA! Cindy, I almost included the to/too/two one as well as a few other similar ones. It bothers me when I see it (especially when I accidentally do it), but at least it is more forgivable. I tend to think that it is more carelessness than ignorance.
September 10th, 2008 at 4:48 am
The wrongness of ending a sentence with a preposition is something that was drilled into me somewhere around 6th grade i think, so i am ALWAYS aware of it, though i often don’t take the time to correct it. So it’s not a peeve i guess. I’m with you guys on to/too alot/a lot, loose/lose. I also like to watch for their/there/they’re – that’s one that i’m peeved about if i get it wrong, so i’m always rechecking myself before sending emails.