I have a pet peeve. It is something that drives me insane. I am constantly yelling corrections at the person on TV who has offended me.
People who earn a living by speaking should be able to do it correctly. The words establish, ask, escape, especially, escort, escalator, espionage, and espresso (to name but a few) have no "x" in them. Look at them. Not an x in the bunch. Yet people who should be educated enough to know better constantly say "extablish, ax, excape, expecially, excort, excalator, expionage, and expresso". As Lucy would say in Charlie Brown, "AAAAARG!"
Problems with pronouns is another peeve. For instance usage of I/me are constantly confused. You would never say Me have a necklace. That is not a problem. I have a necklace for me is also not confused. Why then do folks insist on saying, "I have a necklace for he and I"? I is subjective while me is an objective pronoun. I is the doer of a sentence. Me is the receiver of the action. Try it with he/him. He has the necklace. The necklace is for him. Easy enough to remember.
Then there are what my teachers used to call modified oaths. Rather than say Hell we would say Heck. What we said were not considered to be "bad" words. But they replaced bad words. The most annoying word I hear is Fricking. If you mean to say it then SAY IT!
I am not above grammatical faux pax. You may notice that I do not use punctuation in most places. That is by design. I know proper punctuation. I choose not to use it because my typing skills are so poor that punctuation takes me a lot of time.
How about calm. People have begun to pronounce it as call-mm. It is pronounced com. Look it up. Often is in the same category. It is pronounced off-en. The t is silent.
And do not get me started about nauseous. If you are nauseous you are causing nausea. In other words you are making me sick. If you have an upset stomach you are nauseated. Someone else has made you sick!
I have a major grammatical flaw that drove my mother crazy. I say things like "A whole nother thing." Mom corrected me every time she heard me say it. I have no idea why I say it and I know it is wrong but say it I do.
We have foung our retired selves swearing more. bad spelling and grammar drive me crazy.
ReplyDeletethecontemplativecat
I understand. Me too.
DeleteI cannot read a newspaper (on line), or read an ad, without seeing a misspelling, or poor grammar.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to proofreaders?
DeleteI think the TV is a shocking place for children to learn spelling or grammar. My pet hate is people that say 'you know' after almost every sentence. If I already knew why are they telling me about it.
ReplyDeleteCheers Diane
'You know' grates on the nerves. Good call.
DeleteEmma, I do not have to yell at the TV because of not watching it, but I have seen enough grammatical errors in print to drive me crazy as well. I'm not the best grammarian, but do know when certain words are misused.
ReplyDeleteI admit freely that my grammar is atrocious. But at the same time I know correct grammar. I feel that those in a position of authority especially those who are supposed to be informing us can at least make the effort to do it speaking properly.
DeleteA pet peeve is when people use the word "literally" to start a sentence instead of actually.
ReplyDeleteOr someone says literally when he or she means metaphorically, as in, "He literally flew through the roof."
DeleteAnother good one.
DeleteIt's the bad grammar that drives me so nuts that as soon as I hear someone say, "Me and him..." I lose interest in everything that comes after. Do teachers no longer teach grammar?
ReplyDeleteAs for nauseous, my online dictionary defines it as follows:
1. affected with nausea; inclined to vomit.
2. causing nausea; offensive to the taste or smell.
Actually many school systems do not teach grammar. Thank you for the definitions.
DeleteYesterday on the TV show Jeopardy!, a contestant said, "I and him talked..." One would assume that contestants on such a show are educated, but such usages aren't uncommon.
DeleteI am not exception when comes to get offended on how bad is grammar of national language Urdu here .Not just in tv shows but being teacher I saw at schools no-one cares about grammar anymore.i was shocked often to see how my kids were reading wrong .I would correct them and they would say our teacher taught this way.
ReplyDeleteI am happy I saw time when people cared
We had to speak correctly at school. And my mother insisted that I speak correctly. I have picked up some bad grammatical habits over the years so I am not perfect either. But I do not speak for a living either.
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