Common grammar mistakes that get on your nerves?

disillusioned

I think it would be a good idea if secondary schools made all students read it.
It couldn't hurt!

Pinx

disillusioned wrote:

I think it would be a good idea if secondary schools made all students read it.
It couldn't hurt!

Sorry - I'd missed the post by Macros42 who'd already mentioned "Eats, Shoots and Leaves"! Yes, it should be compulsory reading material in English class - at least it would be something practical instead of learning off quotes from sonnets that no one will ever use again! No one has ever asked me if I should be compared to a Summer's day......

newgrange

We would of asken you if we'd seen you when you done that poem.

Sapien

The ubiquitous use of "who", when in most cases "whom" is correct. Undoubtedly one of the most widespread grammatical errors, even amongst the educated and otherwise articulate.

As to annoyance at unusual word order - the English language is not necessarily as restrictive in that regard as people generally think. So long as it is clear which nouns are subject to which verbs one has free reign to rearrange a sentence to better flow. The result is often a feeling of anachronism and archaism, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Pinx

newgrange wrote:

We would of asken you if we'd seen you when you done that poem.

Aw - thanks!
It goes without saying that I'm more lovely and more temperate....

Dr. Loon

Something that annoys me is when people that are complaining about grammar, spell the word "grammer".

I must admit, I'm unsure of the usage of apostrophes on words ending with s, for example, The Jones. Is it The Jones' or The Jones's? I know my its, it's etc... just unsure of certain situations. I'm no grammar genius, but I think I do alright. Still, I must pick up that book.

simu

disillusioned wrote:

Another really annoying one is when people say "they do be..." although I wonder if this is more to do with the translation from gaeilge?

It is. I use it the odd time for humorous effect.

Earthhorse

Dr. Loon wrote:

Is it The Jones' or The Jones's?

Either of those are correct.

Personally I have more of a problem with grammatical rather than spelling errors. Misspelling lose, for instance, is an understandable mistake in my opinion, particularly considering how infrequently a person would use it.

Misspelling more common words, such as their, there, they're and so forth, is less forgivable, but provided someone's spelling is generally correct I don't really mind.

Dr. Loon

Earthhorse wrote:

Either of those are correct.

I thought so. I read Stephen Kings "On Writing" a while back and he had alot of good points on grammar. I'm trying to think of an example where I get confused on this, but maybe I'm actually right when I do it. Can someone just explain when you would and would not use 's at the end of a word? Maybe give me an example?

Earthhorse

Well, for starters, it's Stephen King's "On Writing" but I'll assume that was just a typo!

You don't use 's for plural possessives, instead it is s', for instance "20 years' experience".

Earthhorse

Actually, I may have been a bit hasty with my initial response.

This page should elucidate all, http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/, and specifically addresses the issue with the Jones.

incisor71

Sapien wrote:

The ubiquitous use of "who", when in most cases "whom" is correct. Undoubtedly one of the most widespread grammatical errors, even amongst the educated and otherwise articulate.

In a situation like that I figure out whether the sentence would sound right if the specified person in the sentence were substituted with "him", and therefore decide between "who" and "whom". Example:

o I have never seen my great-grandfather (direct object)
o I have never seen him (direct object again)
o I'm talking about my great-grandfather, whom I have never seen.

However, strict application of some of the less colloquial rules in English (e.g., "to whom does this car belong?") sounds much too stilted for my liking, and I just defer to the "so who are you going out with?" brigade!

One thing though .... which of these two sentences would you say is correct:

"We had a visit from she who must be obeyed..."

or

"We had a visit from her who must be obeyed..."

Any takers? :rolleyes:

simu

incisor71 wrote:

One thing though .... which of these two sentences would you say is correct:

"We had a visit from she who must be obeyed..."

or

"We had a visit from her who must be obeyed..."

Any takers? :rolleyes:

Hmm... I'd go with the former. "From her who must be obeyed" is wrong - you'd normally say something like "from the woman who must be...". However, "she who must be obeyed" is a figure of speech and should be left as it is imo. It's still sounds a bit... off, though.

PurpleFistMixer

incisor71 wrote:

One thing though .... which of these two sentences would you say is correct:

"We had a visit from she who must be obeyed..."

or

"We had a visit from her who must be obeyed..."

I'd be tempted to say the latter because you could rewrite the sentence as
"We had a visit from Mary, who must be obeyed" (just a random name there) in which case it could be changed to "we had a visit from her, who must be obeyed" and it would look correct.

However "she who must be obeyed" seems to be a phrase and it also looks like the correct way to describe this Mary person who must be obeyed. It's just when put in the context of the start of the sentence that it starts to seem grammatically incorrect.

So... because "she who must be obeyed" is another way of describing this Mary person then I'd guess it could be used as a pronoun for Mary. Therefore, "we had a visit from she who must be obeyed" would be correct, because instead of using the pronoun "her", (which would make the sentence actually "we had a visit from her" and the rest would be all peripheral and mess-making), it means that "she who must be obeyed" is the pronoun, and... such and such, etcetera, I vote for the second option. The fact that "we had a visit from she" is incorrect is irrelevant because that's not the sentence in question.

pickarooney

incisor71 wrote:

A few of my pet hates about colloquial English usage:

(1)Misplacement of a verb's past participle has become rife in Ireland, as in:

"I have it read" instead of "I have read it"
"she has everything taken" instead of "she has taken everything".

I think you're misconstruing the peculiarly Irish syntax in these cases. Rather than simply moving it about, the past participle is being used as an adjective to describe e.g. the state of the book in relation to the reader rather than the actions of the reader on the book. It's almost certainly, as Simu said a direct rendering of Tá an leabhar léite agam.
Rather than illustrating a poor understanding of English, I find such linguistic cross-fertilisations enrich the language.

pickarooney

incisor71 wrote:

In a situation like that I figure out whether the sentence would sound right if the specified person in the sentence were substituted with "him", and therefore decide between "who" and "whom". Example:

o I have never seen my great-grandfather (direct object)
o I have never seen him (direct object again)
o I'm talking about my great-grandfather, whom I have never seen.

Not only does your him-substitution not work here, but it should actually be:

o I'm talking about my great-grandfather, who I have never seen.

On the other hand, it would be correct to say:

o I'm talking about my great-grandfather, to whom I have never spoken.

One thing though .... which of these two sentences would you say is correct:

"We had a visit from she who must be obeyed..."

or

"We had a visit from her who must be obeyed..."

You'd really have to italicise, capitalise or hyphenate she who must be obeyed to make it a single, treatable entity in which case the former would be correct. It's not really done to describe a pronoun in this way - if it's not obvious to whom her refers from the context, a normal noun should be employed.

Any takers?

Zaph

I'm glad that my own pet hate, lose/loose, is an option in the poll. Whenever I see this I want to punch the perpetrator. How has this become so widespread in such a relatively short space of time?

pickarooney

Probably because chants of 'Looooooooooooooooooser!' are hard to transliterate with only one 'O'

incisor71

pickarooney wrote:

Not only does your him-substitution not work here, but it should actually be:

o I'm talking about my great-grandfather, who I have never seen.

On the other hand, it would be correct to say:

o I'm talking about my great-grandfather, to whom I have never spoken.

The reason for using whom in my first example is because the subject (subjective case) is "I" and the direct object (i.e., accusative case) is "my great-grandfather", thus necessitating the usage of the direct object pronoun whom in the second clause of the sentence.

The second clause in the second example you cite utilises the indirect object (dative case) to whom in the second clause of the sentence. One of the functions of the dative case is to encapsulate the preposition to, thus giving rise to the need for to whom. That's something we're more accustomed to hearing than its accusative companion whom.

Tar.Aldarion

They're all annoying.

PiE

Most grammatical mistakes are forgivable.

"The car is parked in are garage" however, is not.

pickarooney

incisor71 wrote:

The reason for using whom in my first example is because the subject (subjective case) is "I" and the direct object (i.e., accusative case) is "my great-grandfather", thus necessitating the usage of the direct object pronoun whom in the second clause of the sentence.

The second clause in the second example you cite utilises the indirect object (dative case) to whom in the second clause of the sentence. One of the functions of the dative case is to encapsulate the preposition to, thus giving rise to the need for to whom. That's something we're more accustomed to hearing than its accusative companion whom.

Well, if you're going to start encapsulating stuff, I have to concede

CuLT

Loose/Lose is mine; I thought I was going nuts for a few months after being continuously exposed to the misspelling by teachers in secondary school.

I really just can't get over American butchering of the language though, it really is a crime to have a dictionary with "neighbor", etc.

banquo

It's apostrophes for me.

I saw this on a wall in Finglas one day: "Barry is a rape'est".

incisor71

banquo wrote:

It's apostrophes for me.

On a quick visit to Cork city last Saturday, I noticed that a sign had been put up adjacent to footpath repairs near the Cork Deaf Centre on MacCurtain St.:

All business's
business as usual

TailFeather

Macros42 wrote:

One that's snuck in in England a lot (at least any English I speak to and on English TV progs) is "I was sat down". That really pi$$es me off.

SNEAKED!! That drives me insane!!

pickarooney

Why does it drive you insane? It's not as though it's grammatically wrong or anything.

Shabadu

"I amn't fond of grammatical errors."

^ This is quite common in Ireland. "I'm not" people. Learn it. Please.

PunyHuman

@ shabadu

I believe that "I amn't" is perfectly acceptable grammar, because it just as obviously means "I am not" as "I'm not" does; it's just a different vowel that's replaced.

It's Hiberno-English, dude.

Tar.Aldarion

I hate 'alot'.

In that poll I hate the mix up of you're and your the most.