Pet peeves

Parent Cafe
1

<p>A well written essay is essential for acceptance into college. Students also have to come across solidly in interviews. </p>

<p>Tonight I was reading a thread on CC and read an entry by a poster I often see posting. This poster is, I believe, a recent Ivy grad or current Ivy student. </p>

<p>He/she used a word that is commonly used inappropriately very often. The word is “anyways.” He/she said something along the lines of "She will be admitted anyways.</p>

<p>When did “anyways” become acceptable for anyway?? </p>

<p>Do you guys have any pet peeves??? </p>

<p>pet peeves</p>

2

<p>I have tons of pet peeves, but I’m going to have to join you on “anyways,” as well as the work “snuck.” IT DOES NOT EXIST, people. Ugh.</p>

<p>Anyway(s), this may get more replies under High School Life. Maybe?</p>

3

<p>When people say “I could care less.”</p>

<p>No. The phrase is “I couldn’t care less.” What you are saying means exactly the opposite of what you think it does. ARGH.</p>

4

<p>when people pronounce the “h” sounds in words like what, white, why, where, etc…</p>

<p>and also when people pronounce the sound “g” at the end of words that end with the letter g… like singinGuh, playinGuh, doinGuh</p>

5

<p>“Anyways” has bugged me a long time. But the epidemic of apostrophes is even worse. Did these people not pass third grade??</p>

6

<p>Using whenever instead of when. This is a fairly new usage that drives my husband and me crazy. As in, “Whenever I got to the airport the plane had already taken off.” Instead of, “When I got to the airport the plane had already taken off.”</p>

<p>The apostrophe thing bugs me as well, BengalMom; especially when it is used incorrectly to make things plural, as in “the Smith’s”.</p>

7

<p>

</p>

<p>What’s equally bad is when they drop the G and say “sing-een”, “play-een”, “do-een”. Katie Couric is one of those who drops the G in -ING words and it drives me nuts!</p>

8

<p>I think the phrase “would’ve went” is the one that annoys me the most.</p>

9

<p>Thanks for like starting this like thread.</p>

10

<p>Using ‘less’ when ‘fewer’ is meant.
‘Your’ instead of ‘you’re’.
‘Irregardless’ is not a word.
‘Tenant’ instead of ‘tenet’.
‘Should of’ instead of ‘should have’.</p>

11

<p>I cringe every time I hear “Where’s he/she at?”</p>

12

<p>This thread will drive me crazy, but it will serve me well too, since poor punctuation and grammar are real sticking points with me, and I feel I’m always harping on it. Thank you for the opportunity to vent.</p>

<p>I’ll include myself with being disgusted at apostrophes everywhere. Let’s get the plural straight, people. Remember 2nd grade?</p>

<p>The other thing that drives me mad (and I hear it all the time) is when people say “equally as” when they mean “just as”, or “equally”…Yesterday was hot, and today will be equally hot. Or today will be just as hot. Not “today will be equally as hot.” Ugh, it’s so difficult to type that.</p>

<p>Okay, here we go:
“Just between you and I”.</p>

<p>Using “your” instead of “you’re”. “Your welcome!” No, it’s not my welcome. I don’t own it.</p>

<p>Not proofing the simple stuff: “My paper is do tomorrow.” “Yes, I like chocolate to!”</p>

<p>Simply not knowing how to use a word or phrase: “I could of had a V8.” “For all intensive purposes…”</p>

<p>Grrrrr. Thanks for ruining my day. :)</p>

13

<p>As has been posted in this forum before, could care less and couldn’t care less are both correct, and both are essentially used for the same meaning. I strongly agree one “sounds better to my ear”, but both are correct.</p>

<p>To say you “could care less” is used to mean the topic is so insignificant that caring less about it would not adversely affect the speaker(such as the price of beans in China doesn’t matter to the speaker).
To say you “couldn’t care less” could mean the amount of caring is SO important, and SO necessary, that to care any less would adversely affect the speaker(such as caring about one’s child’s safety, and caring less could hurt the child).
But to my knowlege, it is rarely if ever used in that context. In my experience, “couldn’t care less” is commonly used to mean impossible to have any less care because there is absolutely no care now(such as the price of beans in China doesn’t matter to the speaker).</p>

<p>So, could care less and couldn’t care less are commonly used to point out the same idea: that the speaker is indifferent to the topic- <em>it doesn’t matter</em>.</p>

<p>Toward and towards also sound odd to my ear, but I know by the dictionary both are correct.</p>

<p>The worst one for me is conjugating “be”. “We be knowin’ him for 4 years” might be ok for everyday slang use with friends, but when one is speaking to others, use real English please.</p>

<p>“Irregardless” is a word. But it is considered a substandard word like “ain’t”.</p>

14

<p>I have several. </p>

<p>The one that bothers me the most is when people use they/their as a singular, gender-neutral substitute for he/she or his/her. This pathetic attempt at being politically correct is not at all grammatically correct. I’ve even seen it used when the sentence ONLY has a one-sex possibility. For example: “A pregnant lady can expect to see their belly grow.” Wrong. So wrong. </p>

<p>“Between you and I” is another biggie with me.</p>

15

<p>There are a few words and phrases that drive me nuts, and then when I mention these, it drives my kids crazy that these things drive me crazy because this all demonstrates what a geek I am. One of my peeves is in the song Yellow Submarine. You know how the lyrics say

Well, if your friends are all on board the Yellow Submarine, how can more of them live next door? Where are your friends? I just don’t get it. ;)</p>

<p>Hyperbole drives Midwest Dad 2 Kids crazy. He doesn’t like it when people are hungry and say they are “starving.” You can decide which one of us is weirder. :)</p>

<p>My pet grammar peeve: when people use “have” or “had” with “came” or “went.”</p>

<p>My grandmother used to say “Cheap at half the price” often. Did that mean it was cheap? Did that mean it was expensive? My mom and I always found “Cheap at half the price” to be an entertaining phrase.</p>

<p>I love words. :smiley: (And emoticons.)</p>

<p>You all are making me nervous that I will make a usage mistake in one of my posts, though. If I use the wrong to, there, or your, it’s a typo! Really!</p>

16

<p>I am with you sunset31
Also, " those ones " instead of " those "</p>

<p>Most of my pet peeves are not grammatical in nature, just anyone human behavior…
For instance, leaving a shopping cart in a parking lot without returning it to one of the corrals , thus leaving it to possible smash into someone else’s car</p>

17

<p>I hate hearing “That said,” and “Having said that,” - it just drives me nuts!</p>

18

<p>“nucular”…for “nuclear”.</p>

19

<p>Ah, Richard Lederer would like this thread…</p>

<p>My pet peeves are, in addition to the "like"s, the "uh"s and “you knows” (Caroline Kennedy, anyone?), the worst one, “ya know what I’m sayin??”</p>

<p>As far as punctuation and grammar goes, it is amazing what would get by my kids’ English teachers, but would NOT get by mom…so they don’t even show me their papers anymore.</p>

20

<p>The pronunciation eXpresso instead of espresso. There is no X in the word!!</p>