Most hated grammatical error [Merged]

VERYinterested

jdivision wrote: »

This one is subject to debate because they are referred to as the licensing laws, hence off license.

I see what you mean, Noffla can't make up their mind!

http://www.noffla.ie/

On their home page, Latest News, they refer to Off Licenses and Off Licences.

shellyboo

VERYinterested wrote: »

I see what you mean, Noffla can't make up their mind!

http://www.noffla.ie/

On their home page they refer to Off Licenses and Off Licences.

OMG, the very people that always make me have to look it up! Effing Noffla. Decide which one you're going to use!!

Wagon

jdivision wrote: »

Hope you're being sarcastic!!

Its, it's and its'

Aha see what you did there....

Jay Division, you'll never cease to impress me.

stovelid

pierrot wrote: »

100 PEOPLE WERE EVACUATED says the headline. I expect the picture to show crap everywhere, but I then realise that it was in fact the building, and not the people who were evacuated.

That would be 100 people evacuated (their bowels), or 100 bowels were evacuated. I think.

Can Flutt provide a precise definition?

Smart Bug

stovelid wrote: »

That would be 100 people evacuated (their bowels), or 100 bowels were evacuated. I think.

Can Flutt provide a precise definition?

100 people were evacuated would infer that the people were subject to colonic irrigations imo.

pierrot

stovelid wrote: »

That would be 100 people evacuated (their bowels), or 100 bowels were evacuated. I think.

Can Flutt provide a precise definition?

Could get technical, this one

stovelid

Smart Bug wrote: »

100 people were evacuated would infer that the people were subject to colonic irrigations imo.

Sure. It should be 100 people were evacuated from the building?

I was pondering the scatological bit though :pac:

pierrot

the amount produced by the evacuation of 100 people would be something to behold

hco

Does be or do be

I do be freezing
It does be packed

I cry...
Where did this even come from? People! Where?!

shellyboo

pierrot wrote: »

the amount produced by the evacuation of 100 people would be something to behold

You can evacuate people from something... the headline is merely omitting where they were evacuated from. Yes, the building was evacuated... but the people were also evacuated from the building.

You'd never say 'I evacuated' to mean you emptied your bowels. When you evacuate you evacuate something (your bowels or a building), or you are evacuated from somewhere. It's a transitive verb, it requires one or more objects. In this case, the object was omitted, but it's still implicit.

(OMG, cannot believe I can remember things from my syntax class in college )

EDIT: The word evacuate has lost all meaning. And I have lost all sense of perspective.

pierrot

hco wrote: »

Does be or do be

I do be freezing
It does be packed

I cry...
Where did this even come from? People! Where?!

comes from the present continuous form that appears only in Irish i think. Like bim or taim, i do be, to distinguish between present cont. and a more regular, daily action

shellyboo

pierrot wrote: »

comes from the present continuous form that appears only in Irish i think. Like bim or taim, i do be, to distinguish between present cont. and a more regular, daily action

Yeah, I think so too... can't remember the proper form in Irish, but it's basically a leftover from that. Lots of little quirks like that in Hiberno English.

Smart Bug

shellyboo wrote: »

Yeah, I think so too... can't remember the proper form in Irish, but it's basically a leftover from that. Lots of little quirks like that in Hiberno English.

You're right, so you are.

pierrot

How about most loved grammatical errors? I'm class, amn't I!!!

Tweeter

Nobody has picked up on this one yet. Using euros and cents as plurals.

E.g. 14 euros and 23 cents when of course it should be 14 euro 23 cent.

Drives me up the fcuking wall that one.

VERYinterested

hco wrote: »

Does be or do be

I do be freezing
It does be packed

I cry...
Where did this even come from? People! Where?!

I blame these guys http://www.doobiebrothers.net/

Another pet hate is "Call in our yiz are way back" Translation: "Call in on your way back"

People when calling out an old registration used to say H aZed J 056 instead of HZJ 056, usually a Garda on Garda Patrol. (The aZoo also springs to mind)

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

Hmmm...

People saying "You have two choices" when they should say "You have two options"

American spelling- using z instead of s, leaving out the u in words like colour, spelling centre center.

This is just a Cork one I think, but when somebody uses the word "with" instead of "for"-as in "They've been together with two years/I've been here with ages!"

Using critique as a verb.

But my grammar can be atrocious, I say things like "I seen, I done", terrible habit cultivated because it annoyed my friend so much!

walshb

Saying 'then' instead of 'than' is a big peeve for me.

Also, the use of the word 'An,' or should I say misuse

As in, "It was an historic triumph," or "It was an historic day." Incorrect in both cases. The letter or word 'A' or 'a' should be used here

An is only used before words that begin with a vowel SOUND.

Not necessarily juST a vowel WORD, it must be before a word beginning with a vowel sound

Also, using a lower case i as a single word. "It is i who stole the milk."
A small i should only be used as a letter in a word; on its own it is always a capital I

Smart Bug

VERYinterested wrote: »

I blame these guys http://www.doobiebrothers.net/

Another pet hate is "Call in our yiz are way back" Translation: "Call in on your way back"

People when calling out an old registration used to say H aZed J 056 instead of HZJ 056, usually a Garda on Garda Patrol. (The aZoo also springs to mind)

I really fukkin hate that aZed pronunciation thing-a-ma-jig.

alb

Tweeter wrote: »

Nobody has picked up on this one yet. Using euros and cents as plurals.

E.g. 14 euros and 23 cents when of course it should be 14 euro 23 cent.

Drives me up the fcuking wall that one.

Actually the euro/cent plural issue is a bit hairy:

"The European Commission Directorate-General for Translation's English Style Guide (A handbook for authors and translators in the European Commission) states: "Like ‘pound’, ‘dollar’ or any other currency name in English, the word ‘euro’ is written in lower case with no initial capital and, where appropriate, takes the plural ‘s’ (as does ‘cent’): This book costs ten euros and fifty cents"

from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_issues_concerning_the_euro

walshb

I always pronounce Z as Zed. I don't think that is in any way incorrect; just a persons choice
as to how to pronounce!

What about this one but:

Tremendous; how is it that some folks see a J in this word and pronounce
it tree men jus?

Or the word Specific; when folks drop the S, it then is pronounced
Pecific?

hullaballoo

stovelid wrote: »

Do you mean when it's used as a conjunct? I always thought it was OK:

The cat, however, is an interesting animal.

However; the cat is an interesting animal.

I've picked up the habit of mostly using an Oxford comma before conjunctions, probably because of work. I always thought it was a matter of preference/locale, rather than incorrect grammar?

It's an irony that people don't seem to have picked up on the fact that I was being super-pedantic about grammatical small-fries. I picked it up last year in college when we had a couple of classes devoted solely to the most irrelevant but very common grammatical 'errors'. I generally try to stick to whatever rules I can remember but sometimes habit gets the better of me.

Personally, other people making mistakes doesn't bother me that much: once I can understand what they're saying (or trying to say), I don't mind. It really bugs me when I make blindingly obvious mistakes.

There's also a rule on the internet (and probably elsewhere) that where you correct someone else's spelling or grammar, your post is bound to contain spelling and/or grammar errors.

shellyboo

Tweeter wrote: »

Nobody has picked up on this one yet. Using euros and cents as plurals.

E.g. 14 euros and 23 cents when of course it should be 14 euro 23 cent.

Drives me up the fcuking wall that one.

alb wrote: »

Actually the euro/cent plural issue is a bit hairy:

"The European Commission Directorate-General for Translation's English Style Guide (A handbook for authors and translators in the European Commission) states: "Like ‘pound’, ‘dollar’ or any other currency name in English, the word ‘euro’ is written in lower case with no initial capital and, where appropriate, takes the plural ‘s’ (as does ‘cent’): This book costs ten euros and fifty cents"

from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_issues_concerning_the_euro

The misuse of 'euros' bugs me, but by the same token, it baffles me why someone would INSERT an irregular plural into a language in this day and effing age. People have enough trouble learning English without the EU trying to confuse us all for the sake of uniformity across Europe.

VERYinterested wrote: »

I
Another pet hate is "Call in our yiz are way back" Translation: "Call in on your way back"

I'd always thought that was 'yisser', as in the possessive of the colloquial collective pronoun 'yis'... so, you (plural) = yis; your (plural) = yisser.

I know it's still not proper English, but it makes some vague sense, even though it is slang! Something similar in ye/ye're.

pierrot

alb wrote: »

Actually the euro/cent plural issue is a bit hairy:

I know, I rarely have plural Euro anymore!

MIN2511

I hate when people say 'nut' or 'O' instead of ZERO!!!!!!

shellyboo

hullaballú wrote: »

There's also a rule on the internet (and probably elsewhere) that where you correct someone else's spelling or grammar, your post is bound to contain spelling and/or grammar errors.

Murphy's Law

alb

It's not a plain old grammatical error but the one that really drives me mad is the "I could care less" instead of "I couldn't care less".

"I could care less" makes no sense in the context it is used. It broke my heart when Toby in the West Wing used it he was supposed to be a speech writer for the president ffs!

Someone has written about it here. There's a related issue with "cheap at twice the price" turning into "Cheap at half the price".

The really horrible thing is that if enough people get something wrong for long enough it is likely to become accepted. Language is always changing, so just wait for the day when your favourite error is officially part of the language

RubyXI

I got it off her

instead of

I got it from her.

ShooterSF

Haven't read the whole topic (there has to be an acronym for that) but whats with people using "teh" is it on purpose?

walshb

What about Bertie and his, "All is I'll say."