<p>I too have a bunch of grammatical pet peeves, being a copy editor for my school’s newspaper.</p>
<p>In particular, people not putting an ‘s after a singular possesive that ends in s (James’s, not James’, for example), or not differentiating between hanged and hung, quote and quotation, healthy and healthful, etc.</p>
<p>Ooh, also, people who mess up parrallel structure or badly misplace modifiers get on my nerves.</p>
<p>I don’t mind so much in spoken language, but when people turn in articles with these mistakes, I get annoyed.</p>
<p>edited to add: I really, really hate the word “persons.” The plural of “person” is “people.”</p>
<p>cubed - what about the hymn “Holy Holy Holy” - “God in three persons, blessed Trinity”. Hhhhmmmmm. Sounds a little better than “God in three people” doesn’t it? (I’m just kidding, by the way)</p>
<p>I detest any institution or entity with an ungrammatical or deliberately misspelled name (e.g. the outrightly sinful Toys (backwards-R) Us), as well as all shops that feels the irredeemably misguided need to use ‘ye’ and add a letter ‘e’ to the end of words (e.g. ‘ye olde towne shoppe’).</p>
<p>Also, Starbucks, because it is run by the minions of the Anti-Christ (actually, because it displaces Coffee Bean, which makes much better cakes (at least in Singapore)).</p>
<p>Bad basic grammar - double negatives (“I don’t have no homework”, etc.) It’s an embarrassment! Other cultures grow up learning two/three languages, and we can’t manage to master one!</p>
<p>Lately, I’ve developed two nasty little speeches of frustration, that I seem to be delivering over and over to those who will listen. (I bet they’re tired of them, too.) (Thanks for listening, folks.)</p>
<p>First, I’m seriously annoyed by the lack of complete reporting in every newspaper I read (Washington Post, NYTimes, Wall St. Journal)–they report half the story and don’t bother asking any difficult questions. For example, a recent NYT magazine article on a mega-church in Arizona had a long interview with the pastor in which he mentioned spending $16000 a year on Krispy Kreme donuts. Now, nothing else in the budget was mentioned. Nor do we know who owns the KK franchise (is it a church member? maybe even the pastor?). This came up in a discussion about tithing by the church members. And the reporter doesn’t ask whether this is a good way to spend church funds when so many of us are fighting obesity, either.</p>
<p>Second little speech is about people who acquire puppies and don’t take the time to train them properly, then complain that their dog is hard to manage and leave the poor thing in the backyard all the time. Or they take them to a shelter because “the dog is wild.”</p>
<p>people (or is it “persons” ) who don’t wash their hands after using the restroom :eek:</p>
<p>And the usual grammar/spelling issues:
“definitely” spelled with an A
“supposed to” without the D…same with “used to”
people who write “per say” (omg I hate that!)</p>
<p>but my biggest spelling peeve is the (non)word “alot”. For the love of all things good, it is TWO WORDS!!!</p>
<p>All that said, I do have friends who probably violate these and I still like them :)</p>
■■■■■■■■1010(post# 45)—Please refer to post #6–you have just triggered one of Hayden’s pet peeves. And you needed a comma in there. OOPS! Sorry, Celebrian25 (posts #20 and 22):)</p>
<p>Momsdream (post 39): There is a device, written up in the WSJ a year or two ago, which is a little wedge-shaped sabotage thingy that is designed to be inserted into the back of the airplane seat in front of you, in order to prevent it from being fully reclined! I kid you not.</p>
<p>(I do get mildly annoyed with people using the wrong form of the word their/they’re/there sometimes… but I don’t correct people for it.)</p>
<p>also the whole spelling you of U and are as R is kind of old. My dad still does that!</p>
<p>I get really annoyed with people in general. Especially the ones that can’t admit that they’re wrong… and people that don’t hold the door for other people… and… well this list could go on and on. :P</p>
<p>I have another pet peeve. Stockbrokers who make cold calls to your house and pretend that they are returning a call to your spouse. If you ask what the call is regarding or if you can take a message, they either say “I’ll call back later” or they just hang up on you. How rude. (I hope none of you do this for a living).</p>
<p>Thanks jym! I wonder if you can get those great little gizmos past the security folks these days. The stockbroker peeve is a great one, too, but I especially hate the ones where they pretend they know me…“Hey, Driver, how’ve you been? If you remember the last time we spoke…”</p>
) who don’t wash their hands after using the restroom :eek:</p>