<p>Was paying at the gas station yesterday. After pumping gas, the message box on the pump asked me, “Do you want a receipt?” My choices were, “Yes” or “No thanks”. </p>
<p>My question to my D. If I had the option of “No thanks”, why didn’t I have the option of “Yes please” - equal opportunity in responses??!!! </p>
<p>Any other random grammar/language quirks found in your daily life?</p>
<p>I could go on about the random quotation marks and misplaced apostrophes that are found all over, but instead, here’s the opposite: in our local supermarket the express lanes actually say 10 or fewer items. Score one for the grammar mavens!</p>
<p>I love that, booklady!</p>
<p>Maybe I’m just old and cranky, but I think the appropriate response to “thank you” is “you’re welcome.” Why do so many people say “no problem” instead? Sometimes I want to respond that I wouldn’t have expected it to be a problem - checking out at the grocery store, for example - so why would someone need to reassure me that it wasn’t a problem? It’s almost as if there’s a presumption that I was imposing on the person!</p>
<p>Haha ^^^ My son was corrected this summer at his golf course job for saying “no problem!” when asked by a club member to do something for them. He was told that the correct response was “my pleasure!” - no problem was not considered a positive response.</p>
<p>Good point on the gas pump, abasket. How about the word “done”? Lowe’s credit card check-out has you select this word after you sign. My friend in Texas used to correct me when I used this word, saying “Only meat can be done. You mean that you are finished.”</p>
<p>The old Warriner’s composition, and Strunk and White, used to have lists of common usage mistakes. It would serve a lot of people well to read them. </p>
<p>I think I am going to scream if I see one more journalist write the expression “try and”. I see it at least once a week in newspapers, I heard it from Brian Wiliams the other night on the news, and I got an email from the CEO of Barnes and Noble sent to Borders customers about their opportunity to “try and” win my business.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot, education establishment.</p>
<p>My pet peeve: They, them, and their are NOT gender-neutral, politcally correct alternatives to he/she, him/her, his/her.</p>
<p>I am definitely old and cranky when it comes to grammar!</p>
<p>I instead of me: “They gave the books to Sally and I…” This one just grates on my ears, but is becoming so common, people think it is correct. Drives me nuts.</p>
<p>Ugh, you’re right, PRJ! I hate the I instead of me trend, too. I think people think it makes them sound more educated. Ha! I call it “grammar inflation.”</p>
<p>“grammar inflation” - ooh, I like that!</p>
<p>And I’ve created a younger grammar critic in my HS senior D:</p>
<p>Tennis coach (and teacher): Girls, watch where your feet are at.
D (under her breath): Coach, watch where your prepositions are at.</p>
<p>:D</p>
<p>I knew it was going to be a rough year when our student’s middle-school English teacher wrapped up his opening remarks at the beginning of the year with, “And that’s where we’re at.”
Arrrrgh. As it turned out, I was quite prescient, but just that one time.</p>
<p>Hands down the one that drives me crazy is “I could care less” - uh no, you couldn’t care less or you actually do care and thus defeat the purpose of what you are trying to say!</p>
<p>irregardless: one of the perennial favorites.</p>
<p>Him and me.</p>
<p>My FIL’s 2 pet peeves were: </p>
<p>‘for free’ - An item is free or for no charge.
'hopefully" - you can be ‘full of hope’.</p>
<p>free gift!</p>
<p>most unique.</p>
<p>quality (to mean of excellent quality)</p>
<p>“No problem” is an informal response and is fine to use in informal situations.</p>
<p>My biggest peeve and what I think is the most serious grammar problem facing this country is the failure to understand what is or is not a proper noun. This has led to rampant over-capitalization, especially in the business, government and NGO worlds.</p>
<p>A close second is the misuse of the phrase “begs the question.” It does not mean raise or suggest a particular question.</p>
<p>A funny usage I hear a lot in VT is So don’t I", to means “So do I.” I find it kind of endearing.</p>
<p>Its versus it’s.</p>
<p>WHY is that so hard???</p>
<p>“My pet peeve: They, them, and their are NOT gender-neutral, politcally correct alternatives to he/she, him/her, his/her.”</p>
<p>Actually DB, they, them, and their have a long history in English usage as neutral forms used when the gender of the individual under discussion and/or the actual number of individuals under discussion is unknown. As in “Which door will they use to come in?” </p>
<p>Granted, it is a struggle to make this usage work in formal written English. But even there, it can be a more felicitous choice than continually typing he/she, etc. or rewording the entire text to work in the plural.</p>